The Night Has Teeth (18 page)

By his posture and the fragile hold on his emotions,
I know better than to push him to say any more. There’s something
about the man in this fading glow of light that makes him look
frail, almost ghostly. When he speaks again, he doesn’t look at
me.

“It was excruciating,” he explains. “The pain you
felt after being bitten, imagine that only tenfold. The science
behind the venom is fascinating to me now, but I knew nothing of it
then. Only the agony of what it was doing to my body. The human
muscle structure changes through tears in sinews, bones break and
re-knit themselves together. The trauma of that physiological
change chases a man for years. For a long while, I was unable to
control the transformations at all. They’re precipitated not just
by phases of the moon but by one’s very emotions. So I learned over
the years to control my feelings, to grow cold to the world. I
lived my human moments praying for salvation, for hope. And I lost
faith in the things in which I once believed.”

He pauses to let out a deep, quavering breath, long
enough for me to think about the past day and a half. Although I
was in and out of consciousness, I recall the pain of the bite and
the crazy half-dreams that followed afterward. The wounds on my arm
throb a little as I think of them. When he speaks again, he has
more command over his voice and the words come out clipped and
bitter.

“But the worst of it was the inability to subdue
the animal that I had become. It was akin to having an out-of-body
experience, that first time I killed. It was savage and gruesome
and I wanted to look away. But I couldn’t. Because it was
I
who was committing this act.
When I understood that ... it was beyond the pale. I couldn’t
escape the hellish nightmare, because the beast I reviled was caged
within my own body.”

What he describes could have been my fate. I know
that. And I know that I owe my life to this man ― or at the very
least to his research. As moved as I am and as sympathetic as I’d
like to be, I’m reminded of one of my favorite console
games:
Dante’s Inferno
.
In the nine circles of hell, people are doomed to suffer in the
ways they lived life. Those who commit crimes of violence against
others are forced to remain in a river of blood that boils souls.
Violence begets violence. So Henri Boguet has to suffer for all the
crimes of his human life. But I have more sense than to say this
out loud.

Instead I ask, “How did you manage to survive?”

“Four hundred years is a long time to live in
self-pity,” he replies. “One must learn from the mistakes of the
past and try to make amends. I’m a very old man, Connor. One whose
very bones are tired. To live so long is ... unnatural. But I am in
pursuit of a very important solution. One that may save all of
humanity.”

“What’s the problem you’re trying to
solve?”

He smiles thinly and says, “One that you are now
intimately acquainted with: werewolves.”

How can he be trying to solve a problem that he’s a
part of? “But you’re one of them.”

“No! I most certainly am not.” He’s angry,
unsettled, and has to take a moment to compose himself. “Perhaps in
chemistry I now am afflicted with their disease. But no, I am still
human at the core. I still process emotions, have a sense of moral
right and wrong, and most importantly I have a soul. All souls are
worth saving, are they not?”

I don’t have an answer. I’m not exactly an expert in
religion. But I do know right from wrong. For the most part. “What
are you saying?”

“I’m saying that the werewolf genome presents a
problem for human civilization,” he answers. “One that must be
eliminated.”

I’ve read about this sort of thing in history books,
and a word comes to mind as if marked in yellow highlighter.
“Genocide,” I blurt out.

“That would be unconscionable.”

“Isn’t that what you’re talking about,
though?”

“Genocide would mean killing them, and frankly,
the idea is deplorable,” the man admits. “No, the work that I do
here is to remove the unnatural element of their genetics and
return them to humanity. At first, I thought the antivenin would be
enough. But, as you know from experience, it must be administered
very quickly. Besides, prevention is better than the cure, as the
old adage goes. Once I discovered the marker, I knew it was a sign
that my work had only just begun. To be able to remove the gene,
the animal, from the human is the solution I’m working
toward.”

The plan has all the makings of an evil scheme.
Sitting here in front of the man behind it all seems almost
surreal. “You have no right.”

“And what right have they to transform the
innocent? You were on the verge of becoming one of them. You don’t
know what sort of life it is.”

“Honestly, you just sound like a madman on a
rampage.”

“I’ve lived too long with this disease to be angry
about it,” he says flatly.

“Then you want to get even.”

“If by even you mean level the playing field, then
yes. All humans deserve a fighting chance against their kind.
Against their mindless attacks...” His voice trails off like he’s
caught in a memory before he shakes his head and rids himself of
it. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have experiments to get back
to.”

Said the mad scientist. After rising slowly from his
seat, he bows slightly in an old-fashioned way, one hand tucked
behind and the other folded in front across his waist. As Henri
Boguet walks away, he passes the window now dim with sunset, and I
see him as a different kind of beast. A very human one.

“The people you have working for you,” I ask as
the man presses an elevator button, “why did they choose to become
werewolves if it’s such a curse?”

He turns to face me one last time. “I gave them a
second chance at life.”

I wonder what that means. Second chance. Is it adult
code for juvenile delinquents? Boadicea and her “colleagues” must
have led very troubled lives to want to turn to this one. And yet,
they have to be brilliant in their own ways to be employed here.
Not just the hired thugs I want to believe them to be. They know
more about science than I could ever hope to understand in a
lifetime.

“Much like you’ve been given another chance in
this equation,” he continues as he enters the elevator. “The
question you have to answer next, young man, is which path to take?
Nobody can make that choice for you.”

And with that, the elevator doors close, leaving me
to consider my options ― all of which appear to be littered with
werewolves.

13.
Weighty Ghost

“H
ow was your chat with Monsieur Boguet?” Boadicea asks as
she steps out of the elevator and walks toward me.

I shrug, not knowing what to say. All I really want
is to get out of here as quickly as possible. Her eyes appraise me.
It’s an uneasy feeling to be looked over by a werewolf. Even after
knowing them for a few weeks now, it still feels like being left
vulnerable and stripped of all my defenses.

“What say we get you home?”

“Yes!” I blurt out eagerly.

She crosses her arms.

“That sounded really desperate, didn’t
it?”

“Ill-mannered is more like it,” she tells me, but
the smile she’s withholding tells me we’re copacetic.

She hands me my fall coat and I shrug into it,
instantly comforted by its familiarity. I’m surprised that it
survived the evening but can’t bother asking how. She cinches the
belt of her green wool coat as I follow her to the elevator, which
we take down to the parking garage. It’s fifty floors down. As I
slouch against the steel wall, I glance over at Boadicea. Her
posture is perfect, which makes me feel a bit self-conscious, but
not enough to do anything about it. I’m simply too tired. My whole
life has been upended, and as each moment passes, it seems to be
spinning far beyond my control.

“Boguet said he gave you all a second chance at
life,” I say, my voice reverberating around us. “What did he
mean?”

She continues to look at the doors in front of us,
but I catch her jawline clenching slightly.

“Did I cross a line?”

Giving me a furtive, sidelong glance she answers,
“No, I just haven’t thought about it for a very long time.”

“Were you in trouble?”

She nods slightly, almost subconsciously. “In a way,
yes.”

There’s a long, uncomfortable silence in which I
contemplate what might happen next. Maybe like the villain in a
movie, this is where she gives me a long spiel about her hard-up
life before she kills me. Not that I totally believe she’s
nefarious. Real life isn’t made up of heroes and villains. Just
ordinary people making choices they have to live with.

“Death is rather troublesome,” she
says.

The words resonate. I don’t know what to say.

“I was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia.”
The words come out like bullets shot out into the tin box, ringing
in my ears. “Cancer. In my blood cells. I’d been fighting it for
over a year. When Monsieur Boguet came to me with his offer, I’d
already been told that I had only six months to live.”

Six months. What would I do if I were given that
short time? What could anyone do in her situation? I can only
imagine what cancer inflicts on a human body. The chemo. Her
luxurious strawberry blonde hair, probably gone. Who wouldn’t
embrace a second chance? Wouldn’t I?

“He explained his work as a geneticist and told me
there was a way that I could rid myself of the cancer, reset my
body in a way,” she goes on. “But the process was experimental.
Only I could know about it. I couldn’t even tell my family about my
decision. When he spelled out what it would involve, I didn’t
believe him. I thought he was mad, actually.”

“But obviously you changed your mind.”

She lets out a little sigh. “When you’re that sick,
time is all you have. It was all I could think about. I was only
sixteen. It hardly seemed fair that the life I was dreaming of
would come to an end before I could even get a real taste for it.
Nevertheless, his proposition weighed on me. Either way, my
decision would mean losing my family. I could never go back. Not
without risking exposure of Monsieur Boguet’s experimental
research. How cruel would I be to betray the man who was about to
give me a second chance at life? As it got close to the end, I knew
there was nothing left for me. My options were either die or die
trying not to.”

I let her words sink in. It’s hard to imagine her
that ill, in a hospital bed, every breath taking her closer to
death. She’s physically perfect in a lot of ways. And now she’s
here working for Boguet in this place. As we exit the elevator, the
lights in parking garage flicker to life. If people knew what went
on throughout the fifty floors above us, they would probably be in
an uproar. But nobody can fault Boguet Biotechnology for being
environmentally insensitive. We walk past various models of
European vehicles ― mostly Smart cars ― and appear to be making our
way to the far end to a bay of white garage doors that separate
private spaces. I’m acutely aware of the fact that I’m trying to
think of other things to talk about. But curiosity gets the better
of me.

“Of all the people he could have contacted, did
you ever wonder why you?”

We arrive at the doors and she presses the remote
entry device on the set of keys she’s withdrawn from her carryall.
As the door slides open, she replies, “Monsieur Boguet has a
rationale for everything he does.”

Upon entering the private one-car garage, I
instantly set my eyes on the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren roadster
within. I gawk slack-jawed for a moment at this thing of mechanical
beauty. Ventilation gills around the engine like a shark, 19-inch
turbine wheels, leather seats and interior, a retractable roof for
warm-weather days. I put a hand on the sleek gunmetal gray and
shiver at its coolness.

“I take it you approve?” she asks.

Looking over at her, I grin. That’s when I notice
storage space on the far wall behind her, empty except for one box
sitting on the very top of several shelves. On the box are her
initials written in black marker, dated almost two years ago. Her
eyes follow mine and a sad smile creeps across her lips.

“It’s remarkable how an entire life can fit into
such a small space.”

I’m at a loss for words again, trying to picture
what I’d pack away as reminders of me if I were in her situation.
How would I even begin to make that decision among all my
possessions? And what would be the point? Things are things. They
can be replaced. A life lived can’t. Before I can walk too far down
that philosophical line, the butterfly doors of the vehicle open
and I’m distracted again as I sink into the luxurious seat. This
new life of hers definitely has its perks. As the main parking
garage door opens to the street and Boadicea pulls the car out of
the underground lot, I slip on my seat belt. My only other motor
vehicle-related experience with a werewolf was spent mostly with my
eyes closed, desperately pleading with fate and all religious
deities to spare me from becoming roadkill. She’s different from
Arden, though. Not precisely werewolf. Not quite human either.
She’s something else ― something new. Instead of tearing through
traffic, she puts in a Nina Simone CD and drives like the average
Parisian. Behind us, the offices of Boguet Biotechnology loom, a
glittering silver tower on the darkening skyline. The further from
it we drive, the more comfortable I get. Despite what he’s done for
Boadicea and the others, I still feel uneasy about his strategy to
take out the werewolf population at large.