Wolf, in League [Wolf 3]

Chapter 1: Mostly He Missed It-4

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.”

* * * *

The house sat in a small clearing, nestled a few hundred feet from the road. The “For Sale” sign on the yard now carried a jaunty red strip of tape that reported the property as “Sold!” Trees loomed over both sides of the front yard, just starting to pick up hues of yellow and orange. In a couple of weeks, they would be magnificent with color.

“Not bad,” Gavin said and turned in the passenger seat to gaze at the house. “Considering the lawyer fellow had it, I was worried it was going to be ostentatious.”

He got out of the vehicle and shut the door before the ‘have you considered that judgmental might not be the way to go here?’ that Matthew was thinking could be voiced. As an afterthought, he mumbled it to the dash anyway. Better out than in, or so Shrek would have him believe.

As Gavin meandered up the property, his eyes on the darkening sky and his hands clasped behind his back, Matthew pulled the car into the driveway and parked it in front of the garage. The moving truck had been here the day before, unloading a variety of new furniture and their personal things. As the men who had reported back on completion of the task said, “There’s been no movement or interest from the target property across the street.”

The house had been purchased between the GDBCG’s lawyer and the real estate agent in charge of the sale. If Mr. Randy Connor, the previous owner, had taken the time to peruse the paperwork, he would have seen nothing more than Shyla and Jones Legal Services listed on the forms. The agent in charge of selling the property had been thrilled to sell it as quickly as she had, and while she had (also as reported, this time from the GDBCG’s lawyer) asked several questions regarding the new owners, the lawyer had advised her that he knew very little about them. They were from out of state, looking for a new start, very private people, blah, blah, and more blah. All answers that had been carefully scripted in advance under the direction of Volos.

“Keep it simple when you get there, Dietrich. Stay close to the truth: you are a doctor, your husband has a medical condition that keeps him indoors during daylight, but you are thrilled to have found such a rural location with like-minded neighbors. And I can’t stress this enough…this will be your in.”

Because, all the world knew, being gay meant a person would automatically become best of buds with any other gays in proximity. It was part of the handbook; one would lose their membership card, otherwise.

“Find out what they’re doing. Who they’re entertaining. But most importantly, find out why they’re hiding.”

Because, in the same manner of thinking, as they shared the same disastrous, unnatural plight of being gay, secrets would instantly be shared.

“Baboons,” Matthew whispered to himself, although he couldn’t help but to look down the road when he got out of the car. If what Volos was saying about their neighbors was true, and heaven knows, the files had looked genuine enough—blood tests, growth charts, pictures, DNA samplings—then Matthew wanted to see it firsthand. His interest was more than piqued; it was all but bursting through his seams. As for Gavin, he’d seen those results right up close and personal and he knew that within the coolers of food that had been brought in alongside ‘their’ belongings lay the bags of blood that Gavin would be sustaining himself with.

“Why a vampire?”

It hadn’t seemed like the obvious choice. Why not another shifter? Why not two normal, ‘unmodified’ men?

“If there’s someone else there with them, he’ll know his own kind, and that—”

Well, that’s what they were worried about. Not their obedient little wolf-men. Not if the O’Connell family was all right. Not what the O’Connells might be planning. But who—what—might be there with them. There had been some intel done in DC. Something to do with Vaughn O’Connell’s oldest son, Lyle. There had been…

“Vampiric involvement—”

…and what that meant, at least to Matthew, could be anything. Death. Mutation. Maybe even some kind of hybrid being developed. But the short of the long was that the big fear was that these new developments could mean ‘Vampires in Wolf!’ and that was, apparently, a big flipping deal.

The irony of that seemed not to reach Volos or Dyball, but it was crystal clear to Matthew. Their vampire was fine. Other vampires were parasites that had to be controlled, known of, disposed of even. It was as if it was the 1950s all over again and while the town had gotten used to their single black family in residence—they were still “colored” folks, but they’d proven themselves useful—they would surely pull out the pitchforks and the rope should another family of that ‘kind’ happen to come along. That wasn’t about to be tolerated, no, sir. Run ‘em out of town.

“Baboons,” he repeated.

“Coming?” Gavin asked. He’d opened the front door and the darkness boring out of the interior of the house was a striking difference to the soft, evening air of the front porch.

Matthew walked toward the house, feeling unsettled and vulnerable, and just before he followed Gavin into the hallway, he stopped. He turned. He looked down the driveway and told himself that no one was watching them. That no one could be watching them through the tree cover around the yard. Telling himself that did nothing to squelch the feeling, though. He could feel eyes on him as if a gaze could grow tentacles and wind itself over his body. Suddenly the dark house didn’t seem nearly as ominous as the yard. He hurried through the entrance and slammed the door shut behind him.