The Night Has Teeth (17 page)

“That doesn’t make sense,” I tell Boadicea, as
though somehow I’m the expert here on lycanthropy. “Amara said
bitten werewolves are supposed to be some kind of half-human,
half-wolf hybrid, aren’t they? You all transformed into
full-fledged wolves.”

“That’s because we weren’t bitten.”

I follow her to conference table, where she pulls up
images on the embedded tablet. It’s a side-by-side CGI comparison
of a human next to a werewolf, broken down to a muscular then a
skeletal level. She swipes the images away with her hand and pulls
up other images. These ones are of DNA strands and sequences, along
with biochemical equations. My strong suit was never in science, so
while it all looks cool, I have no idea what any of it means.

“Up until recently, Boguet Biotechnology was
working on perfecting the antivenin for the werewolf toxin,” she
explains. “Research was significantly restricted because the bulk
of our government funding is for genetic, not biochemical projects.
In fact, Monsieur Boguet made a major breakthrough a number of
years ago that uncovered the werewolf genome in some humans.
Further studies proved their venom acts as a bonding agent that
activates an otherwise harmless marker.”

“Wait a second, you’re telling me that all of us
are somehow related to werewolves?”

“Not precisely,” she says, taking a pause to size
me up. “What do you know about early humans?”

“What, you mean like cavemen and
dinosaurs?”

“More like Neanderthals and wolves.”

I shake my head and take a wild guess. “They’re
pre-humans and pre-dogs?”

“It may surprise you to know that in Asia and
Europe Neanderthals interbred with early humans. It’s estimated
today that one to four percent of the DNA in Asians and Europeans
is part Neanderthal. Bookmark that for a second while I take you on
another tangent.”

With a quick swipe of her hand and a tap of the
touchscreen, she pulls up a few articles with photos from
archaeological digs. Most of the images involve skeletal figures,
half unearthed. Others are computer renderings of what the subjects
would have looked like in real life.

“Bear in mind this is a theoretical tangent,” she
notes, and I nod in an attempt not to appear completely confused.
“Research suggests Neanderthals tamed wolves into dogs. They lived
together and hunted together. These early dogs were guard animals
and beasts of burden. But more than that at times. There’s evidence
in burial sites from around the early Neolithic age that dogs were
treated as equal persons, if you will.”

“So far this all sounds like pretty standard
ancient civilization stuff.”

She wags a finger at me. “You haven’t allowed me to
get to the juicy bit yet. At some point, a wolf virus strain
infected their population. Just as dogs can carry strep throat
pathogens but be immune to the infection, so this virus was passed
on to Neanderthals.”

“Let me guess: the werewolf virus.”

“Clever boy,” she teases.

“How does it work?”

“Here’s where it gets tricky,” she admits. “As you
experienced, the virus itself is transmitted through venom. The
strain would have mutated over tens of thousands of years just as
Neanderthals continued to evolve into the modern werewolf. But both
our species evolved separately. So did the virus. Today, when this
advanced form of the disease tries to take over human cells to
create the modern werewolf, it more often than not simply destroys
all cellular life in the process. However, in that one to four per
cent of the Asian and European population that still carries the
Neanderthal DNA, it does something else. It acts as a sort of
bonding agent to the marker that is deeply embedded in our genetic
sequence. Unfortunately, it can’t understand the ancient
Neanderthal marker any longer. As a result, a bitten human
transforms into a half-man, half-beast hybrid: a creature that is
physiologically quite different from the animal that is the modern
werewolf.”

I squeeze the bridge of my nose to prevent the flow
of information from leaking out of my brain. “This is way too much
to absorb.”

“You’re right,” she agrees. “Besides, you must be
peckish.”

“Starving, actually.”

My stomach squelches as I think of eating for the
first time in the past thirty-six hours. It’s kind of a gnawing
hunger now that my mind focuses on it. Even the realization that I
might be fed something raw doesn’t turn my stomach. I must be
half-starved. We take the elevator down to a lounge of sorts. There
are plush club chairs, ebook readers, a bar with a mini-fridge and
a large, wall-mounted flat screen TV with the latest gaming systems
on the market. I’d be more impressed if I wasn’t so hungry. I
practically run to the café-style table where a plate with a large
burger and mound of fries awaits. When I bite into the meat, my
senses go into overdrive. The smell of the sear marks from the
grill, the taste of the layers of toppings, both individually and
together, are total bliss. It isn’t until Boadicea interrupts me
that I realize I’ve wolfed down half the plate and most of the
cola. I’ve always had a healthy appetite, but this display of it is
almost embarrassing.

“Fantastic, isn’t it?” she asks, not seeming to
mind.

I nod appreciatively, unable to answer with my mouth
full. After swallowing it down with a swig of soda, I set the
burger down for a moment and ask the question that’s been on my
mind since I discovered the team of geniuses upstairs wasn’t born
werewolves.

“So how long have you been a werewolf?”

“Let’s just say it’s a prerequisite of the
job.”

I have a hard time processing this information.
Although I’ve already formulated a pretty clear picture of Henri
Boguet, the fact that his employees are lab rats makes me uneasy
about sticking around. For all the cordial conversation, escape is
still on my mind.

“It’s on a strictly voluntary basis, of course,”
she insists.

“How?”

“Gene therapy,” she explains. “The procedure
involves infusions that insert functional genes in place of the
defective ones ― the ones that cause lycanthropy. I was, of course,
born with the genetic marker that allows the transformation, but
the virus has since evolved. So, the therapy involved modifying the
marker itself with one significant alteration in particular.
Although to all outward appearances I’m a werewolf, I’m simply the
result of genetic engineering. Think of me as the next step in
evolution. My colleagues and I were created specifically to guard
against the spread of lycanthropy. The main difference is that we
don’t have the capability of transforming other humans. I may look
like them and have all of their abilities, but I’m not one of their
kind. We aren’t in the market of creating monsters. Monsieur Boguet
is adamant about that fact. Our goal is to protect our kind ―
humankind that is ― from infection.”

This time, when the elevator pings, I hear it, but
somehow it doesn’t fully register as I’m processing what Boadicea
has just said. I definitely wasn’t far off the mark when I labeled
Henri Boguet a mad scientist. Evil genius would fit the bill
too.

A man’s voice asks, “How is our guest doing?”

“He appears to have recovered just fine, Monsieur
Boguet,” she replies, walking toward her employer.

When I spin around in my seat, I see him by the
elevator. Speak of the devil. He’s nothing close to what I
expected. Henri Boguet looks like a harmless old man. He wears his
gold-tinged white hair thrown back in an unkempt mess. The skin of
his jowls hangs loose along the jawline. Perched on a wide nose,
once broken at the bridge, are rimless glasses behind which are
cold blue eyes, wrinkled at the edges.

“But I’ll let him speak for himself,” she
continues. “If that’s everything?”

He nods once, keeping his gaze on me the whole time
and likewise the reverse. With a few clicks of her heels, Boadicea
enters the elevator and leaves me to fend for myself. As the old
man steps into a ray of light from the western facing window, I
flash on an image of him as wolf-man. Not quite human, not quite
wolf, but a grotesque combination of the two. It’s only for a
moment, but it jars me. Then the image in my mind clears as he
passes through the light of dusk. I try to convince myself he’s
just an old man, but my instincts say otherwise as he takes a seat
across from me.

“Do eat,” he says with a gesture toward my
meal.

He has an accent that’s kind of a mix of French and
German. Not that it matters. In any case, I’ve lost my appetite and
just want to be back at my place. In a meager attempt to refuel my
hunger, I pick up one of the fries, but all I can manage is to
swirl it around in ketchup until it’s too coated and soggy to
actually eat.

“I suppose you’ve heard some rather unkind rumors
about me,” he says.

I remain silent. What am I supposed to say?

“I can’t say that all of it is untrue.”

Now that gets my attention. “What parts?”

He smiles in a grandfatherly way that makes me want
to trust him, even though all my instincts scream otherwise. “My
faults are many, but what I do with science I hope will make amends
for the wrongdoings of my past.”

I finally drop the fry, which splatters on the
plate. “You didn’t really answer my question.”

The man continues to smile. “History is written in
the blood of innocents, and I have written a fair bit of it myself.
I suppose you were taught in school about witch hunts?”

“Yeah, sure,” I answer. “Lots of people were
killed because of bogus superstitions.”

“By today’s standards, it all seems irrational,
doesn’t it?” he admits. “You have to understand that in those days
we had no measure of science or logic with which to gauge those
things that exist outside of societal norms. I made it my life’s
work to record and try to understand the supernatural evils of the
world.”

“By torturing and murdering people?”

He sits back in his chair, taken aback by my
abruptness. “I can assure you, my methods were sanctioned. Cruel,
yes, but I followed the law to the letter. Nonetheless, the history
books have not been kind to my legacy. Henri Boguet, nicknamed the
Witch-Finder of Burgundy, judge of Saint-Claude in the Jura
Mountains near Switzerland, responsible for almost six hundred
death sentences against witches and werewolves. Many of them
children.”

Wolf’s Bane, Amara called him. I push the plate of
food away, appetite be damned. Across the table from me is a
self-professed murderer. One who not only got away with his crimes
but who was in a position of power and authority to put an end to a
terrible trend. Instead he built a career on death.

“You’re repulsed,” he observes. “Rightfully so.
Your aversion to such distasteful matters is not without warrant.
Believe me when I tell you that I truly thought I was doing my duty
in the service of my people. It was a time of famine and despair.
Villages all around us were being terrorized by wild wolves. They
needed assurances that something would be done.”

“You sound like you’re defending your actions,” I
accuse.

“Know this, young man: my conscience weighs
heavily on my soul,” he tells me, his voice thick with untempered
indignation. “The blood of those innocent people is forever on my
hands. What I did was intolerably barbaric. I realized that only
too late. Only after the attack. In some way, I feel this curse is
my penance.”

At this point, I have to ask the obvious questions.
“What exactly is your interest in me? And why the hell are you
telling me all of this?”

“You’re an unusual specimen, Connor
Lewis.”

“In what way?”

His fingers thrum across the tabletop. “I’ve yet to
determine that. In the meantime, you’ve entered, perhaps
unwittingly, into the wolves’ den. I believe you are entitled to
know the truth before you decide your next steps.”

Next steps. I haven’t thought that far ahead. I’m
caught between two sides in a war I never knew existed. The
question is: which side would I rather be on? The mad scientist or
the werewolves? Correction: the mad scientist who
is
a werewolf or the straight-up
werewolves? Everything about Henri Boguet makes me uneasy,
especially this outpouring of truth. It’s definitely a case of
TMI.

“Look,” I start, “I get that you’ve been wronged
here and you’re searching for some kind of revenge, but Amara and
Arden have done nothing but protect me. I know I owe you a huge
thanks for preventing me from becoming a werewolf, but really, that
fight wouldn’t have happened if your hired thugs hadn’t started it
in the first place.”

“Hired, yes, but I would hardly call them thugs,”
he argues. “Is that what you think of Boadicea?”

“No,” I admit. “But she’s persistent.”

“Her persistence is one of the many reasons I
hired her.”

“Well, it backed them into a corner,” I continue.
“I don’t know much about werewolves, but I do know about animal
behavior in general. And you don’t back an animal into a corner
unless you want to get bitten.”

He’s quiet for a long while, mulling over the words,
holding back some of his own. “I’m intimately aware of that.”

It clicks into place. “Is that how it happened to
you?”

The old man swivels in his seat, looking away toward
the setting sun. After a contemplative moment, he casts me a
sidelong glance and softly answers, “Yes.”