Wolf, in League

Chapter 1: Mostly He Missed It-5

Matthew wasn’t surprised that he was led to an area of the GDBCG that he’d never been to before. There were, after all, many areas like that in existence. What did surprise him was the lighting in that particular area. Where white lighting was necessary, over desk and research areas, that lighting was low and specific (surprisingly similar to how Matthew himself preferred to work). In most of the area, however—corridors, waiting areas, even inside the one restroom he’d seen by way of peripheral vision when the door was opened to let in a hurrying, very focused older gentleman in a lab coat—the overhead lighting was red. Emergency red. The kind that shone from “EXIT” signs and out of warning beacons. It was creepy as all get-go.

“Gavin Strauss is the head of this wing,” Dyball explained when he saw Matthew eyeing the lights warily. “He is extremely photophobic and somewhat leucistic. You’ll understand more after you meet him.”

The corridor was more ominous than cold, so when Matthew found himself shivering, he forced his body to quit. These two men had obviously done a good job in setting up their little Blödsinn and he decided to take that as a compliment. At least they’d gone to the effort of attempting a bit of intrigue, rather than resorting to interns draped in sheets and shaking chains while bemoaning Christmases past. Or was that Christmas future?

Matthew shook his head to dispel the thought and was startled when his sleeve was caught.

“In here, Doctor.”

The office he was led into was small but lavishly decorated. Dark wood gleamed under the red lights, thick carpeting softened their footsteps, and expensive frames glittered orange and topaz around a dozen different awards and accomplishments, all with the appropriate seals and signatures to validate them. There were no windows in the office, and only one muted desk lamp offered any ‘natural’ lighting to the room, albeit in a yellow haze. It was enough light for Matthew to register the eyes of the man behind the desk though, and the man could have been Godzilla for all Matthew would have noticed after that.

Matthew was struck speechless, spellbound, as he held the man’s gaze: eyes so light that the irises looked white, what little Matthew could see of them; pupils so large that if he’d not been gazing so intently it would have appeared that the man’s eyes were nothing but black circles; red sclera. Matthew’s hand dropped to his penlight, not waiting for Matthew to consciously direct it. The penlight would be a poor excuse for an ophthalmoscope but it would most certainly do. He snapped it on, he drew it up—

Both of the man’s hands flew up to cover his eyes, and Dyball and Volos shouted as one. “No!”

“Do you not listen at all?” Volos snapped.

Of course…if he got too close, if he looked too carefully, he’d see they were contacts. Clever boys. Matthew narrowed his eyes, his lips thinned. He flicked off the light.

“Or are you just so green that you don’t understand the term ‘photophobic’, Doctor?”

“I…” The reply died on Matthew’s lips. Of course he knew what it was. He’d never seen light sensitivity do that to a set of eyes, though. Sure, there were a hundred other possibilities—keratitis, subconjunctival hemorrhage, corneal ulcers, glaucoma—but for a second there, he’d let his interest make him forget the most important thing. This was all a bunch of horse pucky. Not Ebola.

“Doctor Dietrich, please meet Doctor Strauss,” Dyball said. He eyed Matthew with obvious disapproval. “And do try not to appear so alarmed, Dietrich. It’s an extremely gauche reaction on your part, considering your choice of study. Gavin’s ocular abnormalities are a condition of his virus. It affects not only his eyes, but also his skin. Sunlight can be deadly if he’s exposed for any great length of time. For obvious reasons, fluorescent lighting is banned in this area of the facility. The colored lighting helps reduce irritation and we’ve found that red seems to be the easiest on him, although turning down the regular lighting works almost as well. We’d prefer not to take any unnecessary chances, however, so we stick with the red. We’re researching the possibility that the red hue in the sclera is a natural defense against other lighting. Providing the eyes with their own filter, in a manner of speaking.”

“Virus?” Matthew whispered. Damned he might be, foolish he definitely was, but the interest was back regardless. He stepped closer to the desk. “This is viral?”

“Photochromic lenses help, and polarized ones if sunlight will be unavoidable, but it’s best to completely eliminate it. While lenses may help the eyes, it does nothing for the skin. And even through clothing…well, let’s just say we don’t want to fry our dear Doctor Strauss like a strip of bacon.”

“Is he contagious?” Matthew asked, more fascinated than concerned.

“In a matter of speaking, yes.” Volos stepped forward and extended his hand to Gavin. “Strauss.”

Gavin nodded, offered a limp handshake, and then turned his attention back to Matthew. “Welcome, husband.”

Matthew ignored the comment and also the smirk that came with it. He even ignored the voice that rose in his head to say he’d seen that expression before. Not too darn long ago, in fact. In a reflection. “You were saying?”

Volos slipped into a chair and crossed his legs. “The virus is only contagious with a direct transfer of blood from the host body into the blood of the victim.”

“I see,” Matthew said. He didn’t. Why only blood? What about saliva? Semen? “Did he come to you infected or did it happen after he started working here? Do you know who…what…did it?”

Volos smiled. It was an expression that was completely patronizing. “We did, Doctor.”

Matthew turned away from Gavin—it was oddly hard to break eye-contact—and stared at Volos. “I’m sorry, what?”

“It was a consensual experiment,” Volos explained. “And we’ve garnered a great deal of research material from doing so. It’s going quite well.”

“But why?” Matthew frowned. The echo of his oath momentarily rang through his ears: ‘Above all, I must not play God.’

“Consensual or not, I’m sure the ethics board would have a few things to say about—”

Volos’s smile escalated to a chuckle. “There is no ethics board that has any say on what happens here at the GDBCG. We are completely sanctioned to do what we must, however we need to do it.”

A feeling of unease crept into Matthew’s guts. “And your own sense of morality? Does it not question the ethical failure of turning a whole man into a…” His tongue stuttered, unsure of the correct word. “A sick one? Was he, in fact, whole when you began this procedure?” He stared at Gavin. “Were you?”

Volos’s voice was clipped and sharp when he replied for both of them. “Some things must be done in order to advance science.”

“So too believed the Nazis,” Matthew said. “Their advancements to medicine didn’t stop us from incarcerating them for their crimes against humanity.”

Dyball looked at him, horrified. “On the contrary, Doctor Dietrich. Their advances in medicine and science not only prevented many of them from being tried, but granted some of them positions within our own country’s scientific hierarchy. Sanctioned completely by our government officials, nonetheless. Regardless, that is hardly an appropriate comparison!”

Matthew’s frown tightened. “My apologies, sir. When I said ‘we’ I meant humanity in general. And the Germans have, in fact, done a wonderful job punishing some of the monsters of that war. I guess our government isn’t quite so righteous.”

Volos began to rise. “Gentleman, we are wasting time on semantics—”

Gavin stood, beating Volos to it, and extended his hand across the desk toward Matthew. It was harder than it should have been for Matthew to accept it, and when Matthew did, Gavin kept it locked in his own while he spoke. “I think it’s a fair comparison, actually. It is, however, hardly the way to endear one’s self to one’s new husband. Doctor, I’m thrilled you agreed to join us on this venture. Please be assured that I have not really been made sick, so to speak. There is a side to this affliction that goes above and beyond light sensitivity and the unfortunate effect of not being to stand outside in the sun.”

He tilted his head and offered Matthew a small, sensual smile that was all lip, no teeth. “Unless you mean sick in the mind. And then, by God, you’ve hit the nail right on the head, you have. How about you, Matthew?”

Matthew’s name on Gavin’s tongue was slick and strangely sexy.

“Are you sick in the head as well?” Gavin wiggled his eyebrows, amusement in his voice, and it should have been a ridiculous expression. It wasn’t. It made Matthew’s blood start flowing in ways that a conversation in an office never should. “It would make for some interesting nights in our future, wouldn’t it?”

“Ha.” Matthew tried for a laugh but it wouldn’t come. The word was as close as he could get. “What have they given you?”

Gavin’s smile intensified. “They haven’t told you?”

Matthew shook his head, his hand growing clammy in Gavin’s cool, dry grip.

Gavin used their handclasp to draw Matthew closer. When he spoke again, his lips were directly against Matthew’s ear and since no one else reacted with concern to their closeness, Matthew decided the proximity was most likely safe. Until he heard what Gavin had to say; then nothing seemed safe anymore.

“Vampirism,” Gavin murmured. “They’ve given me vampirism, Doctor.”

Matthew lurched back, he yanked his hand away, and Gavin drew his lips back, curling them up over teeth to expose a double set of long, pointed upper laterals and cuspids. The relief Matthew felt was instantaneous. Well, why not? What would a good old fashioned prankster be without a pair of fake fangs? In the lighting they would almost seem as real as…well, as real as they looked. Wasn’t science wonderful?

He turned to stare blankly at Dyball and Volos waiting for the laughter. Waiting for anything at all to tell him the joke had met its completion. Oh, boy, we got you good! You should have seen your face!

Instead, Volos: “See, the wolves are not our problem at the moment, Dietrich. They are an area of concern, of course, but it’s the vampires that are the problem. They are who we seek to…well, I think the word control is quite enough for you to understand. While there are many different…things…creatures, let’s say, that would surprise and shock the normal man, most of these miracles are content to assimilate with the rest of mankind. For example, a man can be a wolf but he lives as a man except when the urge takes him, and through training—really nothing more than learning your manners at primary school, you understand—he can keep the beast at bay and make himself a decent, profitable, and normal life like you or me. He enjoys his place within the human race, and his desire to kill doesn’t extend to the men and women that exist alongside him. Should a situation arise where this doesn’t happen, and a wolf can’t be taught to learn beyond that, there are consequences. Being of normal human mind, the wolves know this, they recognize this, and they agree to live with that. These rules and life lessons and even the consequences for breaking them, are held to as high a value within their society as they are in ours. In other words, the wolf’s own people, his pack, ensure that he lives up to our expectations.

“With vampires, this is much harder to maintain. They turn cold. Cruel, even. Think of the family dog in the throes of rabies. While it might have, at one time, been a fine and decent pet—loyal, obedient, submissive—it is no longer able to do so. The virus takes its mind.”

Unconsciously, Matthew stepped away from Gavin. “Then…how? Why would you do this to someone?”

“Gavin is different. Gavin has been given a controlled value of the virus in order to study not only its effects and side effects, but also how the body, how the mind copes with it. At this point Doctor Strauss remains very much the human he always was.”

Gavin rolled his eyes and smirked at Matthew.

Curiosity, certainly Matthew’s strongest vice (or so Matthew’s mother would have said), got the better of him and he stepped closer again, looking into Gavin’s eyes, checking Gavin’s body for outward signs of distress. He wasn’t believing any of it. Definitely not. Still…

“But won’t the virus advance? That is, after all, what viruses have a tendency to do if the body doesn’t have the ability to fight it off.”

“I don’t think anyone in this room needs you to tell us what viruses do,” Dyball said. “We are all educated men.”

Who play with fire like children, Matthew thought. He kept that to himself. “Of course.”

“Gavin is maintained with several therapies,” Volos said. “Psychological assistance, antibiotics—”

“Which do absolutely nothing against viral illness,” Matthew muttered, more to himself than anyone else as his brain continued to try and process what they were telling him. Gavin, however, stood in silence, watching Matthew’s reactions with a trained and pointed stare.

“Of course not,” Dyball huffed. “But they do boost some of the body’s abilities at fighting the virus’s stronghold on the host’s system. More managing than fighting it in all truth, but that point is moot. We also keep a close eye on his antibody cells and boost his immunological processes as necessary. T and B lymphocytes on a regulated and carefully controlled basis, of course, so as to keep antibodies active, but not in complete power.”

Matthew couldn’t help himself, he reached for Gavin’s forehead and brushed it with a feather-soft touch. No fever. It was actually shockingly cool, corpse-like even, and his hand recoiled as though operating on its own. No obvious sinus drainage, no apparent inflammation of the eyes or flush on the skin. “Muscle aches?” Matthew found himself asking, following the rote he was so accustomed to. “Nausea? Sore throat?”

“No.” Gavin smiled a slow, teasing smile that seemed to light his eyes. “But I could give you one if you wanted me to.”

“Hilarious,” Matthew said, lifting one eyebrow. “And while I thank you for your consideration, I’m afraid I’ll have to decline. Now that it’s been spoken and answered, you can assume that all further attempts will be met with the same inclination and it will save you the trouble of having to ask again.”

Gavin raised both hands with a shrug of supplication. “I am merely trying to erase the doubt in your eyes, Doctor. It’s very important that we have your belief in these matters.”

“This is what we do, Dietrich,” Volos said. “This is what the GDBCG is. This is the reason we are allowed to push the borders in experimentation and why we’ve achieved the level of respect in our field that we have. It’s why other facilities don’t stumble into results before we do, and why our findings end up being extraordinary and groundbreaking. We have the knowledge and experience that no one else has. So I ask you again…”

Both Volos and Dyball stared at him.

“Do you still want to be part of who we are?”

Was it now? Would they tell him now that it was all a joke? And why was there a sinking feeling in his guts that told him that part of the play was never going to happen? Because it couldn’t happen. Because what they were saying was real…

“May I see his data?” Matthew asked.

“Absolutely,” Dyball said. “There are precautions to drawing blood, however—”

“Of course.”

“And you will respect Doctor Strauss as a member of this facility and remember that he is not a lab rat,” Volos added.

Matthew lifted his chin and firmed his jaw. “You make it sound like I wouldn’t give the same consideration and respect to a lab rat that I would to a faculty member. If that’s what you’re implying, then you are wrong.”

“See?” Gavin said, settling back down into the chair behind the desk. “I told you he would be the right one for this. Be sure he gets the O’Connell files as well, will you? And the real estate lawyer will be here this afternoon at two. As Matthew is already here, and will no doubt be immersed in reading for some time, perhaps it would be better if my new husband dealt with her as opposed to me. I realize that she works for us, but there’s no point in taking unnecessary chances. Let’s not set off any warning bells before we know the right ears are listening.”

“Wolf ears.” Matthew said, hardly believing he was giving credence to the idea.

Gavin looked down at his desk. “Let’s hope that’s all that’s listening.”