TWENTY-FIVE

An hour later, Malachy and I had secured the changeling dogs in cages and crates and closed the office. The crowd’s mood had turned uglier, with Kayla accusing Malachy of seven different kinds of abuse and Marlene ranting that the virus affecting the dogs could spread to humans. I was more concerned that the lycanthropy virus had mutated so that humans could infect dogs. After all, Malachy’s tinkering with the viral DNA had resulted in Pia’s transformation. Perhaps the mutated virus had undergone another transformation.

But of course, I didn’t say any of that out loud. Just as I didn’t question why the virus hadn’t manifested itself more during the fullest phase of the moon. In my opinion, that was the strangest part of all, but nobody had asked my opinion. Yet.

“If there is any possibility of interspecies transmission,” Malachy had said smoothly, “your best protection is to head home now and let me run tests on your animals.”

Reluctantly, the clients had dispersed. Now Malachy sank down into a chair in the waiting room, his head back, his eyes shut. “Right,” he said, rubbing his temples. “First, we need to draw blood samples. Next, we need to run through the various scenarios and determine what we’re looking for. Then we need to chain me up in the basement.”

I gave a little laugh, to be polite, and Malachy looked at me as though I had just had an accident on the floor. “I was not joking, Ms. Barrow.”

“Oh, come on, Mal, aren’t you being a little dramatic?”

“Have I ever struck you as dramatic? Is that a word you have associated with me in the past?”

Okay. Point taken. At a loss for words, I realized that I had never seen Malachy in this kind of a mood; he seemed defeated. “So can’t we whip up a new batch of whatever it is you take?”

Malachy rolled his eyes. “My word, what a marvelous idea! Now, why didn’t I think of it? That was sarcasm, in case you failed to notice.”

I planted my hands on my hips. “And may I inquire as to why you can’t make more pills for yourself?”

Mal kept his eyes closed as he massaged his temples. “Oh, I can absolutely make more pills for myself. Unfortunately, by the time they’re ready, there won’t be enough left of me to know I ought to take them.”

In the charged stillness that followed his statement, I found myself observing inconsequential things. Sunlight slanting through the window, illuminating the dust particles in the air. The flyers on the wall for stray cats and runaway dogs, left by owners who wanted them back, and the flyers for cats and dogs up for adoption, left by owners who wanted to get rid of them. Leashes and dog treats for sale, Dog Fancy magazine on the low table. All the trappings of normalcy, on a day that seemed headed straight into the twilight zone.

“It’s still you, Mal,” I said, and my voice seemed very loud in the quiet room. “It’s not some other being. Just as my wolf is still me.”

“It’s not the same, Abra.” Malachy’s voice was curt, either from fatigue or annoyance. “Maybe some essential essence of you is unchanged in wolf form. I wouldn’t know. But what I become … is deranged.” He paused. “And in that deranged state, I revel in my abased and degraded condition. I enjoy myself.”

“I don’t understand. What do you do that’s so terrible? I’ve hunted deer, Mal. I’ve grabbed a living creature with my teeth and dragged it down. Maybe that’s debased, but when I’m a wolf, it doesn’t feel that way.” I waited for his answer, my heart pounding. I had never talked about what I did as a wolf with Red. I had never discussed it with anybody, and I wasn’t entirely sure why I was revealing this now.

“It’s not terrible,” said Malachy. He turned to me, his eyes pale in his shadowy face. “If you think like a wolf, and act like a wolf. But have you ever been something less than human and more than beast? Have you ever had just enough awareness to pervert those basic animal pleasures?” Malachy held my gaze. “Have you ever toyed with your prey?”

I didn’t say anything, but the memory of what had happened with those young men replayed itself in my head. That had not been a clean, wolf kill. That had been me, between woman and wolf, and it had felt shameful.

“Ah,” said Malachy, leaning his head back on the chair and closing his eyes again. “I see that you have. And that is why people have always feared werewolves, I suppose. Because they combine all that is worst in both species.”

“Not always,” I said, my voice hoarse.

“Perhaps not, for you. But I was trying to isolate the genes that control aggression. And as I said, I do not turn into a wolf. My syndrome is more akin to the one described by Robert Louis Stevenson.” At my baffled look, he added, “in his novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Honestly, woman, do you Americans even read books in school?”

“Hey, I saw the movie.”

“That would be amusing if it weren’t so sad.” He sighed, and I realized how much I loved arguing with him. Some people have special friends for seeing foreign films, or special friends for tennis. Malachy was my special friend for arguing.

He looked old with his eyes closed, I thought, looking at him now. When he was looking at me, I was distracted from the lines and shadows on his face. But now, he seemed older than my mother, who had two decades on him. “Mal.”

His hand still over his face, Malachy opened his eyes and peered at me through splayed fingers. “What?”

“Can you give me directions to make the pills?”

Malachy sighed. “And what good will that do?”

“I can make them for you, and slip them to you if you’re not in the right frame of mind.”

Malachy removed his hand and just looked at me.

“What?”

“You’re brilliant. Or I’m an imbecile. I can’t decide which.”

“Hey, maybe it’s both. How long will it take to get the ingredients together?”

Malachy sat up. “It has to be done in stages. I can write everything down and we can do the initial steps now.”

“I have one request.”

“At this moment, I do believe that I would do anything you wish, Ms. Barrow.”

I smiled, because it was pretty damn sweet to be hearing this. “Anything, huh?”

With a rueful shrug, Malachy amended, “If it’s within my power to provide.”

“In that case, as soon as we’re done mixing up your potion, I need to eat something. Let’s go get some lunch.”

For a moment, Malachy looked as though he was going to say something. Then he gave me a mocking little inclination of his head and said, “Lunch it is, then.”