Science and Sorcery (24 page)

“My uncle doesn't own a clothing store,” she sneered, finally.  “And what are
you
doing here?”

Calvin felt his anger growing stronger and fought to bring it under control.  How
dare
she treat him like that?  Didn’t she know that he’d killed Moe and his cronies – and Sandra?  Of course she didn't, he realised a moment later.  She still thought of him as the nerd so nerdy that even the other nerds stayed well away from him, the loser so pathetic that it had been funny, rather than horrifying, when Moe had pulled down his pants in front of the entire class.  The hot rage bubbled out of control and he found himself shaping a spell within his mind.  This one compelled its target to give truthful answers, always.

“Tell me,” he said, feeling the anger giving him confidence, “how many guys have you put out for?”

Marie looked as if she were about to slap him, before the spell took effect.  “Five,” she said, dully.  She clapped her hand over her mouth a moment later, as if she couldn't believe what she’d just said.  If it had slipped out when talking to Calvin, it might have slipped out in front of her father, or her uncle.  “What...?”

Calvin felt his face twisting into a grin.  Five was almost disappointing, compared to the rumours floating around school. 
They
claimed that Marie had slept with every jock in the school, starting from the moment she became a woman.  But rumours were undependable and guys were prone to bragging.  Moe had once claimed to have slept with every girl in the class, something that pretty much
had
to be a lie.  Calvin had never understood why he had bothered to brag.  He’d had enough action to satisfy
any
teenage boy, unless the girls had never allowed him to go very far.  There was no way that Moe would admit to not having even reached second base.

“You...”  Marie stumbled backwards in shock.  “You’re the one who killed Sandra!”

Calvin reacted instinctively, using a spell to freeze her in place.  Clearly, Marie wasn't quite as dumb as she acted.  Panic threatened to overwhelm him, before Harrow started issuing calm instructions directly into his mind.  Carefully, he locked the door of the store and moved the OPEN sign until it read CLOSED, before casting a second spell on Marie.  This one made her obedient, and helpless to object to anything.

“Walk into the backroom,” he ordered.  A moment later, he realised that he hadn't thought to check to see if anyone else – Marie’s uncle, for instance - was in the shop.  He nipped ahead of her and allowed himself a moment of relief when he discovered that the shop was empty.  A pile of girly magazines and an Ipad bore mute testament to what Marie had been doing, in the long hours between customers.  “When is your uncle due back?”

“This afternoon,” Marie whispered.

Calvin looked at her.  Having a cheerleader under his absolute command had been one of his fantasies for a very long time, particularly after Moe had bragged about how he had half of the cheerleading team trained to suck his cock whenever he wanted it.  Calvin had
known
that he’d been lying and yet he’d still felt jealous.  Now...he looked at Marie and felt his heartbeat starting to race.  He could have her and then wipe her memory.  It wasn't as if he could avoid ensuring that she didn't remember anything.  If he left her, she would go to the police...

She’s just a mundane
, Harrow’s voice said.  Calvin guessed that there was no point in trying to sacrifice her for
mana
.  Harrow confirmed it a moment later. 
Do what you will with her
.

“Undress,” Calvin ordered.  He’d seen her body before, but seeing it in the flesh was different.  He felt almost drunk with power as he reached out and touched her lightly.  “Get down on the floor.”

Afterwards, he cleaned himself up and cast a series of compulsion spells on Marie.  One would ensure that she cleaned herself without ever realising what had happened, although would force her to destroy all the evidence – including camera records, if there were records – and the third would make her forget what had happened.  She’d never remember him at all...

He walked out of the store, his emotions churning.  Part of him rejoiced, for he had lost his virginity at long last; part of him was horrified at what he had done.  He’d
raped
Marie; nothing he said, or did, could hide what he'd done.  The rest of the world would never know, but
he
would know...

She exists for you to use as you see fit
, Harrow said. 
What do you expect she would do, in your place
?

Calvin shivered, but said nothing.  There was nothing to say.  

Chapter Twenty-Four

Washington DC, USA

Day 28

There was something in the air.

Matt could
feel
it as he watched Joe Buckley through the bars, a faint sense of
potential
hanging in the air, as if the universe was holding its breath as the seconds ticked down to zero.  The change had been apparent the moment they’d looked at the records; the werewolves, all of them, had been ordering more meat in their meals for the last three days.  And they’d ordered their steaks rare...

This time, the scientists were determined, there would be a full recording of the entire werewolf transformation.  The werewolves had been scattered around the base, some deep underground and well away from the moon’s light, others nearer the surface or even exposed directly to the rays from high above.  All of them were caged by iron bars; behind the bars, the scientists had placed thin nets made of silver, in case the iron bars proved insufficient to keep the werewolves trapped.  The guards had been issued bullets jacked with silver, as a final resort.  Matt wasn't too happy about preparing deadly force to be used on people who weren't responsible for their own curses, but there was no choice.  His experience – and the other reports – made it clear that they couldn't risk a werewolf breaking out and rampaging across the base.  The SEALs had been told to hold their fire until the last possible moment, and then shoot to kill. 

“I could do with a woman,” Buckley called.  “You think you can send me a maid?”

Matt snorted.  Buckley, unlike most of the other werewolves, seemed almost upbeat, although he had yet to transform properly.  If he hadn't shown the strength and resilience of the born werewolves, it was questionable if the researchers would have kept him on the base.  And yet Matt had been able to sense the magic tainting his body, the change that the mystery werewolf on Fort Hood had inflicted on him.  The guards of Fort Hood, too, had been issued silver bullets.

“I don’t think so,” he said, finally.  “Certainly not into the cage.”

Some of the other werewolves had demanded their wives, or girlfriends.  Indeed, the wife of one of them was pretty much the spokesperson for Changed Rights, a new pressure group that demanded that the Changed be regarded as just another human subspecies.  Her view – that the Changed were being held in involuntary confinement illegally – fought Senator Whitehall’s view all the way.  Matt rather hoped that the two pressure groups would cancel one another out.

“Maybe you should have put me together with one of the women wolves,” Buckley said, a moment later.  “We might have done it while we were Changed and given a whole new meaning to the term Doggy Style.”

Matt rolled his eyes.  “That is terrible,” he said, groaning.  “Just how hungry are you feeling right now?”

“Too hungry,” Buckley said.  Matt exchanged glances with one of the researchers.  Buckley had eaten a steak large enough to feed two or three normal men only an hour ago, complete with fries and onion rings.  For some reason, he hadn't touched the salad.  “I could eat a horse.  I...”

Matt
felt
it, a shimmer of magic that suddenly flickered through the air.  He’d sensed it before, he remembered, although he hadn’t realised what it had been before he'd run into his very first werewolf.  Buckley let out a strangled sound, almost a growl, and sat upright, before plunging forward and off the bed inside the cage.  His hospital gown ripped as he lunged around the cage, exposing his body.  Matt had never seen anyone as hairy as Buckley...no, the hairs were growing right out of his body.  Buckley’s mouth opened and he howled in pain, just before his face started to warp and twist into something inhuman.  Matt couldn't take his eyes off the sight as his nose became a snout and his teeth grew sharper and nastier.  There was a blur as the werewolf seemed to chase his own tail, and then he halted, staring at the humans on the other side of the cage.

“My God,” one of the researchers breathed.  “I don’t believe it.”

The werewolf – Joe Buckley – was massive, easily the largest canine Matt had ever seen.  His fur was black, dark enough to make the beast almost invisible in the darkness; his paws seemed astonishingly powerful, as if he could have outrun a cheetah in the open air.  The only human thing about the werewolf was his eyes, which remained distressingly human.  Matt couldn't tell if that was merely a trick of the light, or if there was something different about a made werewolf’s transformation.  The last werewolf he’d seen had had inhuman eyes.

He heard the SEALs shuffling nervously behind him, holding their weapons at the ready.  They were the elite, the toughest soldiers in the country, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and countries that few people realised they’d visited while on duty, but the werewolf disturbed the hell out of them.  Matt couldn't blame them for a second.  The scent emanating from Joe Buckley’s cage brought back racial memories of the days mankind had cowered in caves, fearing the sabre-toothed tiger and other monsters that lurked just beyond the fire.  It was funny, really, how he hadn't noticed the smell the last time he’d encountered a werewolf.  A sniff might have been enough to make him turn and run.

Buckley moved, finally, pacing the cage and glancing around him with his human eyes.  Matt had owned a dog once, when he’d been a kid, and Buckley simply didn't
act
like a dog, or even a wolf.  It was somehow impossible to avoid the belief that he was still intelligent, perhaps capable of thinking and planning ahead, even if his moral centre had been shifted by the Change.  He stalked around the cage, tail firmly up in the air, and then settled down to stare unblinkingly at the researchers.  Matt couldn't remember ever facing a more intimidating stare, even from a serial killer he'd helped arrest last year. 

“The mass seems to have changed,” one of the researchers said, through a very dry mouth.  The werewolf’s scrutiny was unnerving as hell.  “In some ways, I’d say he was actually
lighter
than I would have expected.”

Matt blinked in surprise.  Somehow, in wolf form, Joe Buckley looked bigger than he’d been as a soldier, and he’d been a pretty big soldier.  Apparently, his CO had been firmly of the belief that everyone under his command, from Special Forces dudes to paper-pushers in the FOB, should exercise regularly.  You never knew when a paper-pusher might have to pick up a rifle and fight to defend himself.  And Buckley had been a mechanic and driver, not a REMF. 

“He stuffed himself with food,” he said, out loud.  “Do you think he was storing calories for the Change?”

“Could be,” the researcher agreed.  “We don’t have a good handle on how magic drains calories from the body, but it certainly seems to do
something
along those lines.”

Matt nodded.  All of the magicians got hungry very quickly as they used their magic, forcing them to eat regularly and carry bars of chocolate around with them for emergency rations, although no one was quite sure why.  The general theory was that flexing magical muscles – or perhaps the process of converting background
mana
into fuel – burned up energy.  An alternate theory, popular among some of the fringe researchers, was that the magicians wanted to exercise, so they were subconsciously forcing their bodies to burn energy when they used magic.  No one knew for sure.

He peered down at one of the computer monitors as data started to flow in.  The x-ray sensors that had been hidden in the cage had no difficulty providing basic data on the werewolf, starting with the fact that his brain still seemed to be human.  In fact, the skull didn't seem to have changed very much, apart from growing a handful of struts for the snout.  The rest of the wolf body was very different.  Somehow, it seemed to have been completely altered by the curse.

“Very much like a normal wolf, but considerably more powerful,” the researcher commented.  “And I’d bet good money that the regeneration capabilities are much better in wolf form than human form.  Shoot one with a normal bullet and it would be healed in seconds.”

Unless I shot him
, Matt thought, sourly.  He hadn't been sure just
what
had gone wrong with his abilities when facing the vampire, unless his determination to take Layla alive had ensured that his shot wouldn't kill her.  Golem seemed convinced that he needed training in his abilities, but there was no one to train him.  Matt had no idea how the first Hunters had learned, unless their creators had already had a good idea of what they should be able to do.  But how could anyone have created a whole new human subspecies back then?

Experimentation
, he thought, a moment later.  Golem never said a word against Enchanter, his creator, but the interviewers had done a great deal of reading between the lines.  The sorcerers had had a great deal of curiously, a vast amount of power to manipulate the natural world and a complete lack of scruples about human experimentation.  They might not have understood the existence of DNA, or of genetics, but they’d certainly managed to push the boundaries of knowledge forward in remarkable directions.  Golem had even mentioned a sorcerer who had created intelligent cats and dogs, all of which seemed to have died out over the years since the magic had gone away.  Or maybe they were just keeping their intelligence really quiet. 

His radio buzzed.  “This is Alpha-Five,” a voice said.  “Werewolf Seven is going crazy, throwing herself at the bars.  Requesting reinforcements.”

Matt gave Joe Buckley one last glance and then headed for the stairs.  Werewolf Seven had been a young woman from Texas before she’d found herself outside her house, stark naked, just after the full moon.  It had been nearly a week before she’d reported herself to the local police, who tested her blood and then sent her on to Washington when she tested positive.  Unlike Buckley, she’d wanted out from the moment she reached the base, demanding that she be freed at once.  Matt couldn't blame her, but he knew the dangers.  A single werewolf running loose in a town could be disastrous.

He heard the howls long before he walked into the holding chamber.  Another werewolf, slightly smaller than Buckley, was spinning around in her cage, slamming her entire body against the iron bars.  The entire room was shaking every time she crashed into the structure, even though it had been welded to the floor.  Matt looked at the sheer power she was displaying and wondered, suddenly, just how he'd been lucky enough to survive his first encounter with a werewolf.  He shouldn't even have had time to draw his gun.

“We started running the tests and she just went crazy,” one of the researchers said, shouting to be heard over the din.  One of the SEALs had found some ear-protectors and was handing them out to everyone who wanted one.  “I don't know why!”

“Maybe she sensed the x-rays,” Matt suggested.  Dogs did have more capable senses than humans, at least in some respects.  Could they sense x-rays?  There was no way to know just what a werewolf could do unless they managed to interview someone who remembered being in wolf form.  “Can you shut down the active testing and see what happens?”

The room shook again as the werewolf hit the bars.  This time, Matt could have sworn he saw the bars starting to shift.  Alarms sounded a moment later, adding to the racket; the SEALs cocked their guns, ready to open fire.  Matt reached for his own sidearm, but didn't draw it.  Instead, he motioned for the researchers to shut down their equipment and leave the compartment.  They’d had safe rooms prepared for them that should have kept them safe against anything from armed commandoes to werewolves and vampires.  As the scientists fled the room, there was a final crash and four of the bars simply smashed outwards, crashing against the silver mesh.  Matt swore out loud and fumbled for his sidearm as he realised their dreadful mistake.  The iron bars would push the silver out of the way, allowing the werewolf to break free without touching the silver at all.

“Open fire,” the SEAL team leader snapped.

The sound of gunshots was deafeningly loud in the confined space, almost overwhelming the howls as the werewolf crashed through the bars and slid out into the compartment.  A moment later, the werewolf seemed to stop dead in the air, before crashing to the ground, blood pooling around her body.  Matt sensed, rather than saw, flickers of blue fire where her body touched the remains of the silver mesh.  Golem had never been able to explain why silver burned werewolves – it seemed to be like touching acid for them – but it definitely worked.  A dozen silver-coated bullets had brought the werewolf down.

Matt stared in disbelief as the body twitched, as if she was slowly returning to human form, before there was a final shudder and then nothing more.  Carefully, the SEALs approached the werewolf, prodding her with their guns.  There was no reaction at all.  Matt couldn't see how
anything
could have survived so many gunshots, even if the bullets hadn’t been silver.  He stepped closer and saw that the girl seemed to have died as her body was in the process of shifting back, leaving her trapped eternally between human and wolf.  Gritting his teeth, he looked away, fighting down the urge to be sick.  The girl hadn't
asked
to be a werewolf, nor had she asked to be confined and then shot down like an animal.  There had been no choice...