“Damn it!”
The dogs went wild.
“—she’s free,” the other woman stated.
The doorknob rattled and the howler burst into the hallway, the placid blue of our uniforms hanging loosely from a fur-covered body that shivered somewhere between wolf and woman. Tubes hung, dripping, from her arms. She looked down the hall, chest heaving and, turning, she spotted me.
She convulsed, one paw re-forming into a hand, one side of her face sinking into human features as the other half stayed long and narrow and furred, stretching her skin and testing her bones until she shrieked at her transformation.
Falling to the floor she shuddered, her backbone whipping her torso and head so hard I heard a crack. She whined and, mostly human, clambered to her feet.
Hair a wild tangle, and her eyes as red as Pietr’s had ever been, I recognized her instantly. Harmony—my attacker on the first day I did laundry detail.
So not good.
She staggered one step forward. One ear still pointed, one hand still curled and sharp with claws, Harmony flared her nostrils, sucking down my scent.
Still inside the room she’d torn out of, dogs whined, clawing and pushing at the door, eager to run.
“Pull them back so we can open it—” Jones shouted.
Collars and chains rattled.
I turned to the door at my back and tried the knob. Locked. Dodging across the hall I tried another.
“Push them out of the way!”
Dammit.
“Get between them—”
Harmony watched as I charged up the hall to the next set of doors. I twisted another knob. Locked. But as I slid across the floor to move on, I heard a click behind me. My heart hammered and the scent of summer drifted past. “Mom.” I tried the knob again and it squealed open. Jumping inside, I shoved the door shut, pinning it closed with my body as I slid down, the clipboard clattering to the floor.
Outside, the door down the hall opened. Claws clicked on the hall’s floor as the dogs scrabbled after their quarry.
Climbing to my feet I stood snug to the door to peer out the narrow window.
She was on the ground, eyes closed, belly up. Throat exposed, she was still except for the flash of a pulse in her throat and the rise and fall of her chest as she fought panic.
Submitting.
“Wait for it,” Jones commanded. “We should know in just another minute…”
“You really think there’s a cure—you’ve found it?” This close the other voice sounded distinctly like my regular nurse.
“Yes. The girl Rusakova—Cat. I’d stake my reputation she’s been cured. Why else wouldn’t you fight as an oborot when trying to free your mother? And if we have the cure, we know what things we can’t let them near. The other office may be working on making them—”
BINGO. They were part of the same company.
“But if we can assure they can’t be unmade once the deed’s done…”
I trembled, the tiny spots on my arm where they drew daily blood samples bit into me with cold. They were using me to undo werewolves so they could discover how to work beyond a cure. The changes they intended would be permanent.
The dogs stood, hair spiking along their shoulders and backs. Mouths open and tongues trembling, their snouts were ridged with wrinkles. Their teeth glinted, slick with saliva. They were huge—big brutes. And there were—one, two …
… seven I could see, more than I’d imagined prowling the grounds.
Hunting people like Pietr.
Harmony screamed again, thrashing, her body racked with tremors, hair sprouting in thick and sudden patches. She clawed at herself, frantic, eyes wide. Her face distorted, pulling into a snout and she shouted, words garbled as her vocal cords changed and her body stuttered, choosing one shape or another.
Tight to the dogs’ broad chain collars thick leashes were attached. They rattled in anticipation.
With a final cry she kicked out, her foot cracking against a dog’s jaw.
There was no more barking. No snapping. Only a growing, rumbling growl.
Harmony grew still, only the occasional flutter of her chest showing she lived, her form stuck between the two warring sides of her twisted genetics.
Just beyond the scope of my vision, Dr. Jones cursed. “This isn’t working. I’m not exactly sure where we went wrong, but this subject is a total loss.”
“She’s strong—she popped the straps and sent those buckles flying. Maybe it just doesn’t work on half-bloods.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps we’re missing a component. She’s worthless either way. She submitted,” Jones pointed out. “More flight than fight. And that? That doesn’t look like a cure—stuck between. Disgusting. We’ll need another subject. I’d love to get my hands on a full-blood. The Rusakova alpha. Now he would be a prize specimen.”
“What do we do with her?”
“Look away.”
Fingers snapped. “Fred. Jeremy.”
My eyes went wide as I caught a glimpse of a wickedly scarred arm repaired with awkward-looking stitches. Its hand moved to detach the leashes.
The wrist turned and I spotted the odd tattoo.
My guards?
“We’ve made a dog’s breakfast out of this,” Jones said, more a command than a comment.
There was no more growling.
But the screaming made up for it as the dogs attacked.
I barely kept from jumping back, gasping in horror. She’d submitted! Given up!
For a moment the writhing bodies of the dogs parted. Harmony struggled to rise, slipping in her own blood, her hand reaching for my door’s knob …
And then they pounced and tore her to pieces.
I slid down the wall, covering my head with my arms.
The frenzy of noise rose in volume for the space of a few heartbeats and then the sounds changed.
Gnawing.
The lapping up of liquid … blood.
I was going to be sick.
The quiet sounds of the aftermath of murder were deafening.
“See?” Dr. Jones asked. “Just a little additional cleanup.”
The nurse gagged.
“Stop that,” Jones scolded. “We must be pragmatic about all this. We are on the verge of changing—recharging—the abilities of evolution itself.”
Eyes wide, I clutched my discarded clipboard, crushing it to my chest.
The nurse reasoned, “If we include werewolfism in humanity’s new evolution, don’t we, the previous generations, slip down the food chain?”