Moonshifted(98)

“It was this drug my brother’s been selling downtown.” I took the paper from Meaty to read it myself. “I don’t even know what smectite is.”

Images began appearing on the monitor in front of Gideon, and we all crowded around. There was a man who looked like Winter, having a fight in the hallway with a person wearing a lab coat. The security cameras didn’t have great resolution, and I couldn’t read lips. “Dammit.”

“I know where that is,” Gina said, pointing at something flowy and metal monopolizing half the screen. “I recognize that crappy statue. They’re outside the transfusion center. Weres visit the transfusion center all the time. They donate a lot of blood, to cover them during their mortal times.”

“He was probably just donating,” Rachel said, and squinted, leaning forward. “Why would you get mad about not being able to donate?”

The onscreen fight between Winter and a tech continued. “When you want to make a withdrawal instead,” I said.

Gideon switched screens. The monitor view divided into eight quadrants, each of them showing gray squares outside. It was snowing lightly in all of them, and black shadows were coming toward the screen.

“Is that now?” I asked him, and he nodded. “Is Triage over? Are those patients, returning?”

Gideon didn’t respond to me. He opened up one of the smaller rectangles so that it occupied the whole screen. The people coming toward the camera were not the helpless crutching group Gideon and I had seen leaving. These new people ran, strong, on two and four legs both. “Look at the way they move,” Gina said. “Weres.”

“Smectite and feldspar are types of clay,” Meaty said from behind us. “Your brother was selling water and dirt.”

“What? The way he talked that stuff up—it was like magic. And it wasn’t just him. I confiscated a vial of it from one of the weres here, too.” I was sure it had something to do with things—

Gina took the sheet from me and gasped. “No way.” And then she groaned. “He was selling it? To how many people?”

“I don’t know. He said business was good—” As I talked the color drained from her face. “Why?”

“Your brother was selling water from a werewolf’s paw print.”

“So?” I asked—but the reading I’d done came flooding back to me. “You mean everyone he sold to—is going to become were?”

“This’ll be their first moon.” Gina leaned forward and tapped the monitor screen. “That’s them. Coming here, now.”

“Paw prints—that’s old. Older than me, even.” Meaty maneuvered around the station table and came to look at the screen with us. My own brother had been selling werewolf-water. And it was a full moon. And some of his clients, and probably other “dealers” and their clients, of the Luna Lobos were coming here too. More people crowded the camera’s angles all the time.

“Shit. How fast does it work?”

“Not how fast, how much. Depends on how much you drank.” We all watched the screens, aghast, and Gina shook her head. “Who the hell was hooking them up?”

“Doesn’t matter. We’re sitting ducks here, people. Grab as many trank rifles and as much ammo as you can,” Meaty said. “It’s time to leave.”





CHAPTER FORTY-NINE





“Why are they coming here?” I asked Meaty while Gina and Rachel raided the isolation carts for guns and ammo. The weres in the distant rooms were still trying to escape.

“Someone’s controlling them,” Meaty answered. We both watched over Gideon’s shoulder as the weres became more numerous, zooming closer. I almost wanted him to turn off the feed.

“But—why here? Why now?” Behind us, there was a wall-rattling thump as the weres in the distant rooms still tried to escape. Thank God they’d reinforced after the dragon. Thank God.

“There’s only three things that are valuable at this hospital.” Meaty ticked off thick fingers. “Vampire blood, were blood, and a shitload of narcotics. I’d bet those things are after the first two. As for why now—who knows? Maybe because the Shadows are gone. I’d like to know how they found that out, though.” Meaty glared at me.

“If I had talked, do you think I would have been stupid enough come back here?” I said.

Meaty grunted. “Charles didn’t talk. He’s already in Bermuda.”

“So whoever’s running this show did something to set the Shadows off. It doesn’t change what we’re dealing with right now,” Gina said, frowning as she returned. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me, though.”