Bauer held up the syringe. As she stared at it, she blinked, almost blanched. Fear so thick it clogged my nostrils, unwittingly started my adrenaline pumping. When she looked back at me, the anger was gone. What I saw in those eyes stopped me cold. Pleading. Fear and pleading.
"I want you to understand, Elena. Help me. Don't make me use this thing."
"You don't have to use it," I said quietly. "No one's going to make you."
"Do it for me then. Please."
"Do-?"
"Bite my arm."
"I can't-"
"I have a knife. I'll cut the skin. You can just-"
Panic settled in my chest. "No, I can't."
"Help me do it right, Elena. I don't know how well the saline solution will work. I could only guess at the amount, the proportion. I need you-"
"No."
"I'm asking you-"
I strained against my bonds, locking eyes with her. "Listen to me, Sondra. Give me a minute and let me explain what'll happen to you if you use that. It isn't the way you think it is. You don't want to do this."
Her eyes glittered then. All mania gone. Ice-cold. "I don't?"
She lifted the syringe.
"No!" I shouted, bucking in my chair.
She buried the needle into her arm, shoved the plunger down. And it was done. One second. One split second. As much time as it had taken Clay to bite me.
"Goddamn you!" I yelled. "You stupid bitch-Call the infirmary. Now!"
Her face was preternaturally calm, lips curving in something like bliss. Blissful relief at having done it. "Why, Elena? Why should I call the infirmary? So they can reverse it? Suck the gift from my veins like snake venom? Oh, no. We'll have none of that.""Call the infirmary! Guards! Where the hell are the guards?"
"You heard me send them away."
"You don't know what you've done," I snarled. "You think this is some great gift. One prick of the needle and you're a werewolf? You did your research, didn't you? You know what happens now, right?"
Bauer turned her dreamy smile on me. "I can feel it coursing through my blood. The change. It's warm. Tingling. The beginnings of metamorphosis."
"Oh, that's not all you're going to feel."
She closed her eyes, shuddered, reopened them, and smiled. "Seems I've gained something tonight and you've lost something. You're no longer the only female werewolf, Elena."
Her eyes widened then. Bulged. Veins in her neck and forehead popped up. She gasped, choked. Hands going to her throat. Body jerking upright. Spine snapping rigid. Eyes rolling. Rising to her toes, pitching forward and back, like a convict on the end of a hangman's noose. Then she collapsed, pooling to the floor. I screamed for help.
WINSLOE
"What did you do to Ms. Bauer?" Matasumi asked.
Guards had collected Bauer soon after I started shouting. Twenty minutes later, they'd returned with Matasumi. He now stood there accusing me without a trace of accusation in his voice.
"I told the guards." I sat on the edge of my bed, trying to relax, as if this sort of thing happened every day. "She injected herself with my saliva."
"And why would she do that?" Matasumi asked.
"The bite of a werewolf is one way of becoming a werewolf."
"I realize that. But why-" He stopped. "Oh, I see."
Did he? Did he really see? I doubted it. None of them could understand what was coming. I could, and I was trying very, very hard not to think about it.
Matasumi cleared his throat. "You claim Ms. Bauer injected herself-"
"The syringe is on the floor."
His eyes flickered to the needle, but he made no move to pick it up. "You claim she used this syringe-"
"I don't claim anything. I'm telling you what happened. She injected herself in the arm. Look for the needle mark. Test the contents of the syringe."
The door opened. Carmichael hurried inside, lab coat billowing behind her.
"We don't have time for this," she said. "I need to know what to do for her."
Matasumi waved Carmichael aside. "First, we must establish the exact nature of Ms. Bauer's ailment. It's all very well for Ms. Michaels to claim-"
"She's telling the truth," Carmichael said. "I saw the needle mark."
It would have been hard to miss. Even as the guards had carried Bauer from the cell, I'd seen the injection point, swollen to the size of a Ping-Pong ball. A memory of my own bite leaped to mind, but I shoved it back. Cold, clinical observation. That was the only way I could deal with this. Take notes from Matasumi.
Carmichael turned to me. "I need to know how to deal with this. Sondra's unconscious. Her pressure's dropping. Her temperature's skyrocketing. Her pupils won't react to stimuli. Her pulse is racing and becoming erratic."
"There's nothing I can do."
"You've been through this, Elena. You lived through it."
I said nothing. Carmichael advanced on me. I eased back on the bed, but she only came closer, pushing her face into mine until I could smell her frustration. I turned my head. She grabbed my chin and wrenched my face back to hers. "She's dying, Elena. Dying horribly."
"It'll only get worse."
Her fingers tightened, digging into my jaw muscles. "You are going to help her. If it were you up there, I wouldn't stand by and watch you die. Tell me how to help her."
"You want to help her? Put a bullet through her head. Skip the silver variety. Regular lead will do."
Carmichael flung my chin aside and stepped back to stare at me. "My God, you are cold."
I said nothing.
"This isn't helping," Matasumi said. "Treat the symptoms as you see them, Doctor Carmichael. That's the best we can do. If Ms. Bauer inflicted this misfortune on herself, then all we can do is treat the symptoms and leave the rest to fate."
"That's not the best we can do," Carmichael said, her eyes boring into mine.
I didn't want to defend myself. I really didn't. But the weight of that glare was too much.
"What exactly do you think I can do?" I asked. "I don't run around biting humans and nursing them back to health. Do you know how many newly bitten werewolves I've met? None. Zero. It doesn't happen. I've never even been around a hereditary werewolf who's come of age. I don't know what to do."
"You've been through it."
"You think I took notes? Do you know what I remember? I remember Hell. Complete with fire and brimstone, demons and imps, red-hot pinchers and bottomless pits of lava. I remember what I saw up here." I smacked my palm against my forehead. "I remember what I imagined, what I dreamed. Nightmares, delirium, that's all there was. I don't know shit about temperatures and blood pressure and pupil response. Someone else dealt with that. And when it was all over, I didn't want to know what he did. All I wanted was to forget."
"These visions of Hell," Matasumi said. "Perhaps you could describe them for me later. The connection between the supernatural and Satanic ritual-"
"For God's sake, leave it alone," Carmichael said. "For once. Leave it alone."
She strode from the room. Matasumi bent for the syringe, then stopped, motioned for a guard to pick it up, and followed Carmichael.
***
Would I have helped Bauer if I could? I don't know. Why should I? She kidnapped me and threw me in a cage. Did I owe her anything? Hell, no. If the woman was stupid enough to turn herself into a werewolf, that wasn't my problem. Did I do or say anything to make her embrace such unbelievable folly? Did I regale her with stories of the wonderful, fun-filled life of a werewolf? Anything but. Did I seek revenge by encouraging her to plunge that needle into her arm? Absolutely not. Yes, she was my enemy, but she'd brought this on herself. So why did I feel responsible? I wasn't. Yet part of me wished I could help, at least alleviate her suffering. Why? Because I understood that suffering. This was another woman who'd become a werewolf, and as different as our circumstances were, I didn't want her to suffer. The outcome would almost certainly be death. I hoped it came quickly.***
At midnight, Winsloe walked into my cell. Through the shadows of an impending nightmare, I heard the door open, subconsciously realized the sound came from the real world, and forced myself awake, grateful for the diversion. I rolled out of bed to see Tyrone Winsloe standing in my cell doorway, framed by the hallway light, presenting himself, waiting for my acknowledgment. A disconcerting surge of awe ran through me. It was like having Bill Gates show up on my doorstep-no matter how much I wanted to be not impressed, I couldn't help myself.
"So this is the female werewolf." He stepped inside, flanked by two guards. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance," he said with a mock bow. "I'm Ty Winsloe."
He introduced himself, not with modesty, as if I might not recognize him, but with a smarmy self-importance, an introduction as phony as the bow. When I didn't respond fast enough, a tremor of annoyance unsettled his features.
"Promethean Fire," he said, prompting me with the name of his world-famous company.
"Yes, I know."
His face rearranged itself back into a gratified smirk. Motioning the guards to stay put, he stepped farther into the cell. His gaze inched over me, walking around, giving my backside a slow once-over, scrutinizing me without embarrassment, as if I were a potential slave in a Roman marketplace. When he circled back to my front, his gaze paused at my chest, lips curving downward in a disappointed frown.
"Not bad," he said. "Nothing a couple of implants couldn't fix."