Page 7 of Wolf Bane (Marked #3)

“Because I am rarely mistaken when it comes to my gut feeling, Landry. Perhaps it’s something were about me,” he added with a deprecating smirk, “or maybe it’s just years of experience dealing with bullshitters.

But this smacks of organization. Of a plan.

Not some random werewolf cold going around.

And you, dear Doctor Babin, are one of the few people I know who can and will poke at this till the wheels come off. ”

“I… I’m flattered?”

“Don’t be. You’re one of the few survivors from Garrow’s experiments. It was either you or Justin, and he’s scared of his own shadow. You, however, are angry. Angry and offended. And you have the curiosity and tenacity to take this apart and find out what’s making it tick.”

“That feels like a lot of backhanded compliments,” I muttered, rearranging the papers as if they were puzzle pieces. The right order and click .

“How many patients?”

I glanced up. “Shouldn’t you already know that? I mean, you are the liaison for us with the ICW, right?”

“I’m not omnipotent,” he snipped. “We don’t have trackers on every were and shifter we’ve met, sending us telemetry on their health status.

We rely on field reports of this sort of thing.

Besides,” he added with a sniff, “Ethan’s been chatty.

His calls aren’t entirely private. Certain key words, they ping the security measures.

And you mentioned a little family with odd symptoms.”

“That violates patient rights,” I bit out. “That’s?—”

“Outside of both of our purview. And even if you complained, who would you take it to? The state board?” Cullen spread his long fingers out, letting the offense slip through like water.

“ Oh, please, I’d like to report a group of werewolves trying to ensure the preservation of their overarching community for using security measures to ensure no one is working against them knowingly or accidentally! ”

“That isn’t what I sound like,” I groused, glaring. “And that’s not what y’all are doing.”

“Then tell me, Landry, what is it we’re doing?”

Fucking with my life. Playing God. “Why does this make you think of Garrow? Why not turn one of the ICW researchers loose on this?” I asked instead, the name of the man who turned me into whatever I was, into this not quite human design, bitter like bile.

So many deaths, so much torment and abuse…

All for what? To create some perfect creature?

Some eugenics-meets-Creepshow experiment that supported his own wild need for weres to be superior?

When I thought about it too much, it made my skin burn and my bones want to leap from my body, the knowledge that what I am is all because of greed and hate.

Cullen watched me quietly for so long, I wondered if he’d blacked out on me or something. Finally, he shook his head minutely and tapped the drive in front of him. “It’s here. All of it. All that I could get, which is more than Ethan knows.”

“The fact you didn’t tack on a snarky comment about his intelligence is kind of freaking me out a little here.”

“Good. Now is not the time to be blasé about anything.”

Outside, the sound of Mal and Mariska returning home from Mariska’s little scout meeting filtered through the open window with the cooling October breeze.

Cullen glanced aside, a soft expression crossing his features for just a hair’s breadth of a second before he schooled his face back into bland, bored lines.

“My concern is the grouping, primarily. I haven’t been able to dig very far into the details about the dead but the few I’ve found information on, they had some similarities that would be considered a rather large warning light for this situation. ”

Here we go. “Such as?”

“Lan! Lan! Guess what? Hey!”

There was a thump then a muffled ow hey before Mal’s voice joined his daughter’s. “We knock first, remember? Uncle Landry told you a dozen times.”

Cullen raised a brow at me. “Uncle?”

“I didn’t tell her to do that,” I muttered, face warming. “She decided that on her own and I can’t convince her to stop. I’m pretty sure she’s doubling down now just to make me squirm.”

Cullen huffed softly. “That’s new though. Last time I spoke with her, you were still Doctor Babin.”

“Yeah. Well.” I shuffled the papers together as Mal knocked on the back door. “Just a sec,” I called. “Where are you staying? We’re not done here.”

“I’m staying in my condo on the shore of Lake Michigan,” he said, rising gracefully to his feet. “My flight back leaves at ten. Do not,” he said sharply, gesturing to the flash drive in my hand, “lose that. I’ll be taking it back in three days.”

Mal knocked again. “Landry? We can come back later, it’s no big deal,” he called.

“Sorry. Cullen’s here. Hold up.”

“Uncle Timothy!” Mariska shrieked.

I glanced back at Cullen. “And you’re giving me shit?”

He smiled faintly, giving me a sharp-toothed flash of annoyance as I opened the door for Mal and Mariska.

She made a beeline for Cullen, all but climbing him as he gingerly held on to her so she could show him something she’d found outside while Mal lingered at my side.

“It’s weird, but she’s happy, and he’s not that bad,” he muttered.

“If you say so.”

The visit wasn’t terribly long, mostly because Mariska was already a little ragged around the edges by the time they arrived.

“I was going to take her in and get her to bathe while I made dinner,” Mal yawned, “but she heard Cullen’s voice.

” He lifted a shoulder in a sheepish shrug. “Shifter hearing.”

I glanced at Cullen, who seemed occupied with Mariska’s show and tell of what seemed to be a very interesting rock, but I knew all the feigned indifference in the world wouldn’t keep him from overhearing me if I mentioned the potential virus to Mal.

Instead, I nodded towards the fridge. “I was gonna make burgers if you want to hang out. Nothing fancy, just on the stove.”

“Oh, I don’t want to put you out?—”

“Burgers! Hell yeah!”

“Mariska.” Mal sighed. “I told you Tyler’s not the best person to repeat after.”

“You just said not to repeat after him when he says fuck.”

Cullen raised a brow at that. “Be precise, Malcolm. It’s the only way to achieve your desired outcome.”

Mariska smirked. “Yeah, Dad.”

I left them to bicker while I made a quick dinner—not at all what I’d planned to do, but having voices in the house was kind of nice after weeks of quiet.

The occasional visit from Tyler, often with Justin in tow, filled some of the evenings.

Though, to be fair, spending an evening with Cullen wasn’t exactly high on my list of fun ideas and the fact I was feeling amenable to him staying for a bit longer really drove home just how lonely it’d been with Ethan gone for so long.

Dinner didn’t last as long as I thought it’d might, not with Mariska starting to do a slow nod into her oven fries and Cullen checking the time frequently.

Finally, around eight, Mal scooped Mariska up and headed next door, Cullen gathering his things to follow. “I’m still a landlord,” he said with a slight nod in their direction. “I should check on my property before going.”

“We need to talk about?—”

He shook his head once, sharply. “I don’t know how much the girl overheard already, not if she’s already keen enough to have heard my voice from outside. Little pitchers have big ears, as my mother used to say. Especially when they’re not really human.”

It made my gut squeeze, the knowledge that Cullen—and therefore the ICW—had picked up on Mariska’s senses being just a bit better than other shifters and weres her age.

Mal had noticed it back in Colorado but wrote it off to paternal favoritism, thinking his kid was the best at things because, well, she’s his kid and she’s pretty awesome.

But it had slowly become more evident over the past several months that not only was Mariska’s hearing, sight, and smell sharper than a human kid her age, but keener than most supernaturals around her, too.

Mal had whispered over the firepit not long ago, while she snoozed on the porch swing nearby, that he worried it was because of what Garrow had done to us.

Maybe, he thought, it skipped him and passed on to her. And if we noticed it, who else would?

I met Cullen’s bland expression and knew that whatever worries Mal had, they weren’t entirely unfounded. But until Cullen or anyone else came calling with intent, I wasn’t going to draw attention to Mariska like that.

“You can’t just dump this on me and bail, Cullen. If I can’t even talk to Ethan about this, what the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Ethan’s not the end all, be all,” he reminded me tartly.

“And this isn’t something I can just let slide through the system, Landry.

It’s too much of an outlier, too strange to ignore.

Whatever is causing this, it feels pointed.

Why just these communities? Why aren’t we seeing it in the urban were communities?

Why,” he said with a slight, pointed pause, “is it originating in the same place as you and your neighbor?”

“Texas,” I said flatly. “A huge state with millions of people and therefore hundreds of weres and shifters. It’s the law of averages. It’s?—”

“The first case was found in a former employee of Garrow’s,” he interrupted.

Words clotted in my throat at the sound of those two syllables.

Cullen sniffed, smoothing his hand over his neatly pressed shirt, somehow still crisp after hours of travel and late autumn heat.

“Roland Tripp,” he said. “You won’t know the name.

He’s a… what do you call them down here?

A dud? A were that’s full blooded but couldn’t shift, barely had any abilities. ”

I shook my head, blood rushing so loudly in my ears I could barely hear Cullen. “I… I’d have to ask Ethan. Or Tyler. I don’t know what they call weres like that.”

“Well. Dear Mister Tripp worked in the accounting department for Bluebonnet Labs. He was patient zero, or near enough, for this little outbreak.”

“How?” I finally managed to rasp. “Bluebonnet’s gone. Garrow’s in jail.”

“He didn’t work alone,” Cullen chided. “I know you’ve had a head injury or two in the past year, but surely you haven’t forgotten Garrow wasn’t a, ha, lone wolf.”

The ice in my veins was melting in sharp, prickly bursts, fear decades old surging with my pulse. “Are we in danger?”

“Any more than usual?” Cullen clarified. “I’m not entirely sure. But I do know that the ICW isn’t going to pursue this in a meaningful way any time soon. And I have my inkling as to why. I suggest you start digging, Doctor Babin, before things get beyond our control.”