39
“There have always been groups like the Institute,” Rob said from the head of a conference table that looked very much like it had come from the Middle Ages. On the stone walls around them hung crimson banners stitched with golden, rampant lions. Rooster had a vague idea what they were all about, part of the business name no less, but he’d been lucky to figure out Robin Hood on his own. No doubt someone would fill him in at some point.
“But the Ingraham Institute,” Rob continued, “is the first one to have government funding and total protection from all the alphabet agencies.” He turned to his right. “Much?”
The kid, face invisible save for a narrow sliver of nose and a corner of an eye through his pale hair, tapped something on the laptop in front of him and an overhead projector whirred to life. An image appeared on the wall behind Rob’s chair: an old black-and-white photo of an utilitarian building in the snow, a smiling man in a lab coat standing in front of it.
“Dr. Charles Ingraham,” Rob said, gesturing behind him to the photo. “He was the first notable American to use medical science to try to explain supernatural phenomenon. Thousands had done it before him, all the way back to the beginning, but he had a grant from Harvard and was performing experiments on wolves in his school-provided labs.”
Much made a disgusted noise.
“Wolves?” Rooster asked.
Rob’s pleasant expression grew wry. “I’ll get to that. But be warned: you aren’t going to believe it. Okay, so, Ingraham. One of his lab rats was Russian, so he convinced the university, and eventually the damn president, to send him to Stalingrad as part of the Lend-Lease program the US had with the Soviets.”
Rooster nodded. That at least made some real-world sense.
“He’d been in contact with a man named Philippe being kept on retainer by Stalin. It was all very convoluted – a whole anti-Soviet White plot – and at the end of it, Dr. Ingraham was killed in a fire. But not before obtaining video and photo and biological evidence that werewolves exist, can be created, and can be used to wake and assist vampires.”
Rooster stared at him.
“I know,” Rob said, growing serious. He braced his elbows on the table, hands linked as he leaned toward Rooster imploringly. “It sounds completely crazy, no doubt to a military man like yourself. But here I sit. In the flesh. And Deshawn tells me your Red is a mage.”
Rooster swallowed three times, and finally picked up the water bottle that had been set in front of him before the meeting. “She,” he said, hesitant, after he’d had a sip. “She has…these powers.”
“When you came home from Iraq, you could barely move,” Deshawn said levelly from across the table. “Red put her hands on you, and look at you now; you’re bigger than you ever were on active duty.”
“I got better.” A weak protest. A false one, he knew.
Rooster gripped the water bottle hard in his left hand – his bad hand – and felt the plastic crumple. Water droplets spilled over his knuckles. The pain was only a low buzz. She hadn’t healed him in the traditional sense, but she’d pushed the pain back and let his body heal itself.
“The more magical technology becomes, the less humans are willing to believe in actual magic,” Rob said.
Rooster looked at him, chest tight. “What are you, then?”
Rob grinned, flashing those too-sharp teeth again. “ ‘Now this is the Law of the Jungle — as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die,’ ” he recited. “I always loved Kipling, and I don’t think that’s just my English bias talking. I am a wolf, friend. Richard’s wolf, and this is my pack.”
Rooster looked at Deshawn, brows raised.
“No.” Deshawn shook his head.
“Only my Merry Men,” Rob explained. “The rest of our ranks are filled with highly capable humans.”
“This is bullshit,” Rooster said.
“Yeah,” Deshawn agreed. “But what’re you gonna do?”
“Ugh,” Much said. “Can we just get on with it?”
“Yes, yes,” Rob said, waving. “Next slide, please.”
~*~
“The Institute isn’t some kind of big evil government entity,” Rob explained. “Their heart’s in the right place. But their methods are questionable at best.
“Humans and immortals haven’t had much in the way of meaningful interaction in the last few centuries. The last, most notable instance was of Vlad Tepes leading his armies against the Ottoman Empire.”
A new slide clicked into view, a painting of a man with an angry, scowl, a dramatic mustache, and a ridiculous hat.
“His supporters accused his brother of killing him and arrested him. Valerian. I tried to buy him from them, but.” Rob shrugged. “They wouldn’t negotiate and they went deep underground.”
Rooster listened, disbelieving, thoughts growing fuzzier and fuzzier by the second.
“We’ve been in business for a long time now. I haven’t wanted to be on the Institute’s radar, so we haven’t intervened. But when I met Deshawn, I realized things have gotten really out of hand over there.”
“Red…” Rooster started, and trailed off, overwhelmed.
Rob’s expression became grim. “She’s a mage. A kind of vampire Familiar that can wield all sorts of magic. There aren’t many of them left – to my knowledge, Philippe was the only one of record who’s ever worked willingly with the Institute. So I see they decided to breed their own. Raise them up as lab rats.” His brows drew together, gaze darkening. “If I’d known that, before…” He shook his head. “We’re going to help you get her back, Rooster. And I’m going to have a word with whoever’s in charge.”
“A word,” Rooster said with a snort.
Rob just smiled, cocky. “It’s high time those of us that are left make our presence known. If the Absence is awake again…as you Yanks say, shit’s about to hit the fan.”
~*~
“We’ve got sandwiches,” Deshawn said as he led the way into a fairly standard mess hall. Long tables, vending machines, and a stainless steel kitchen that looked cold at the moment. He went to the fridge and started laying packaged lunch meats and cheeses out on a big butcher block island.
Two guys with crew cuts and green camo sat at a small table off to the side, eating and talking quietly.
Rooster’s attention went to the gray-headed, round-faced man slumped over another table, plastic cup at his elbow, snoring into the crook of his other arm.
“Is that…?”
“Tuck, yeah,” Deshawn said, following his gaze as he started setting bread slices on plates. “He’s like that a lot.”
“’Kay.”
Deshawn sighed. “I know you’re freaking out.”
“No I’m not.”
Deshawn put exactly three slices of ham on the bottom of each sandwich. “You are.”
And Rooster snapped. “Yeah, okay. I am.” He turned away from the sleeping man – fucking Friar Tuck – and stormed over to the island. Braced both hands against its edge and realized he was shaking. “Yeah,” he said, biting off the word now. “I’m freaking the fuck out. The Deshawn I used to know would be too.”
Deshawn wiped his hands on his pants legs and lifted a deceptively calm look. “Oh, that’s how you wanna play this?”
“I’m not playing, asshole. This is – this is – it’s fucking insane!” he spluttered. And oh shit, black spots were crowding his vision. He gripped the counter hard and tried to take deep breaths. Fuck this. Fuck all of this.
Deshawn’s tone softened, became soothing. “I know, man. Hey, I know, okay? It’s insane, yeah. It took me a long time to believe any of it. Just give it a minute to sink in.”
But that wasn’t what went down his throat like a jagged lump of metal. The thing that was slowly making his brain implode.
“You’re supposed to be the normal one,” he admitted, and the last thread of control snapped. “Jesus, D, you’re the stable guy. With the wife, and the kid, and – and fucking table manners.”
Deshawn cocked a deceptively mild eyebrow.
“You know what I mean! You’re the guy with his shit together; not the guy who goes and gets a crazy, probably illegal job with a buncha fucking werewolves they made a Disney movie about!”
“Oh, I get it. I’m just your support system. The boring sidekick. Got it.”
“No, that’s not what I–”
“I should stay home, and get fat, and leave all the scary shit to you, right?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Deshawn sent him an unimpressed look. “You’re not my wife, or my mom, so do me a favor and stop acting like it.”
Rooster sighed, deflating. He was still too shocked and exhausted to carry anger for very long. “That’s not what I meant,” he repeated, pathetic this time.
Deshawn added a little mustard and laid the top slices of bread on the sandwiches. Slid one across to Rooster. “Eat that.”
Rooster picked it up and took a dutiful bite.
“As long as we’ve been friends,” Deshawn said, “I thought you knew me better than this.” He sighed. “Me joining the Corps, that wasn’t just putting in my time. It didn’t traumatize me, the things we did over there; I’m not broken. I don’t have any regrets – except that you got hurt.”
Rooster set the sandwich down, stomach too tight to eat.
“I thought – I think everybody thinks – that when you get out, you can take a deep breath again. That you can go back to your life. That you have nightmares, yeah, but that it gets better over time. You start to feel human again.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t like that. It…” Rooster could see his friend struggling to say it just right. “I was so goddamn bored. I was climbing out of my skin.”
He breathed a laugh. “I know that makes me sound shitty, but it’s the truth. I was home with my family, I was trying to set up my own business, and all I could think was that I was wasting my – I dunno – my talents. Not everybody has the stomach to do what we do,” he said, seriously, looking at Rooster. “It just seems like a waste not to spend my time protecting the people who need it. Doing something positive. Any kid on summer break can cut grass; but I can put a bullet in a man, and not even lose any sleep.”
Rooster went still; he’d been standing still, but he realized, when a moment of perfect calm stole over him, that he’d been twitching. Yeah, he thought, I get that. A bone-deep understanding passed between them. Maybe they were sick, but it didn’t matter: there was no changing it.
“I have a family,” Deshawn said, “and I love them more than anything. But I’m a Marine, too, and that’s not something I can switch off. I’m not more normal than you, brother. I’m just not.”
Slowly, Rooster nodded.
“Now. You gonna tell me again what I’m like? Or can we actually get some shit done?”