The Night Has Teeth (26 page)

“No,” I answer. “I mean, sort of. It’s all kind of
a blur. Like a dream. Which it definitely wasn’t.”

“So, it’s true. That was your first time
shifting.”

“Yeah,” I answer, putting my face into my grimy
hands.

“Who bit you?”

“It doesn’t matter. This wasn’t supposed to
happen.”

She pads across the room on her bare feet. I feel
her presence by my side. Slowly, I lay my hands across my forearms
to glance up at her.

“If you know all of this, why aren’t you afraid of
me?”

Her answer both surprises me and doesn’t. “Because I
was bitten, too.”

I flash back to the creature that chased after me
last night. The transformation must have happened at around the
same time I thought I blacked out. Madison was standing there with
me by the park. She was the one who followed me and probably
brought me back to safety before I could injure anyone. For a
second, I’m glad she’s one of the bitten. Otherwise, I might have
woken up to deadlier circumstances. The idea that I could have hurt
her fills me with an unsettling regret.

“Does Josh know?”

She nods. “Yeah. He’s the one who bit me.”

It dawns on me then that every single one of the
friends I made in Paris is a werewolf. I feel words tumbling around
in my mouth like cement in a mixer, and all that comes out is,
“How?”

“Last spring...”

“When Josh said there’d been an accident,” I muse,
“I assumed DUI.”

She puts out a hand, and I can sense the hesitation
in the gesture. Then she takes the plunge and runs her fingers
through the knots in my hair. After all this time avoiding physical
contact, it’s a welcome sensation.

“That’s still sort of right, if you take out the
D,” she admits. “It was spring break and we were camping in the
Black Forest. My idea. He forgets that. We wouldn’t have been there
at all if I hadn’t suggested it. All I wanted was to read Brothers
Grimm fairy tales under the stars in that forest. It was totally
juvenile. Our first night there, we got into a fight over something
dumb. He was drunk — too drunk to remember exactly what happened,
not that it even matters now. I left to take a walk by myself and
... that’s when it happened. He likes to think that if he’d been
sober he would’ve been able to stop it from happening. He hasn’t
had so much as a drop of alcohol since then.”

“He feels guilty,” I remark. “Obviously he thinks
that you hate him for what happened.”

Her hand stops. “I don’t know, Connor,” she says,
disentangling her fingers from my hair. “Maybe I just hate anything
that reminds me of that night. I almost died. There was a long time
afterward when I wished I
had
died.”

Both of us are quiet. And I know we’re both thinking
about essentially the same thing. That fate worse than death. I
recall what Boguet said about being bitten: the pain of it and of
the things that haunt you afterward. The memories of having no
control between the times when you do. The times when you have the
power to end it all...

“Amara and Arden, how did they not
know?”

She shakes her head. “Oh, they knew. They just
couldn’t tell you. None of us could. It’s against the rules.”

“My living with them kind of defies that,” I
note.

She fills in the much-needed missing piece. “That’s
why Josh and I were assigned to you to begin with.”

“So, I’m just some kind of project?”

“Melodramatic much?” she chides. “Their pack
leader, Rodolfus de Aquila, has a special interest in you. I think
I get why now. Anyway, we were asked to make sure you were safe.
Usually, they don’t associate with our kind.”

“Whatever his interest was, it’s no longer
applicable,” I tell her. “He’s sending me home at the end of the
semester.”

“He must not know about your being
bitten.”

That can’t be right. Roul
must
know. If he wasn’t there to see it, Arden would
have mentioned it to him. What am I supposed to make of all this?
Roul said he was mistaken about me. Before that, Boguet called me
an unusual specimen. What are they not telling me?

“About the bite,” she starts quietly and continues
in an even lower register. “We weren’t really supposed to be at the
La Pleine Lune party. That part ... that was on me. I just — I
wanted to know what it was like. To be one of them.”

It’s probably as close to an apology that I’ll get
from Madison, so I don’t say anything more on the matter just yet.
Talking about it makes it more real anyway. Looking down, I notice
strange markings on her left ankle and ― I don’t know what
possesses me to do it but ― I grab hold of her foot and ask, “What
are these marks?”

Madison hunkers down to sit with one leg beneath her
and the other one ― the one I still have a grip on ― bent in front,
heel flat on the floor. With a finger she traces a tattoo on her
left inner ankle. It’s a simple number six done in some kind of
Gothic Germanic font.

“I got this one after I was bitten,” she tells me.
“In Chinese, the number six is supposed to represent
happiness.”

I lean my head back against the wall. It’s my turn
to watch her. Sunshine and happiness aren’t exactly her thing.
“Yeah, but what does it mean to you?”

Her mouth tightens into a fine line. “It’s one of
the numbers of the beast, isn’t it?”

This explanation seems truer to the mark, even if
she hasn’t given me a straight answer. She feels cursed, maybe like
she’s a monster. I continue to stare at her, but she gazes at her
tattoo, not wanting to make eye contact.

“What about this one?” I ask, rubbing the other
side of her ankle with my thumb. It looks like a brand, the kind
that’s used on animals. Scar tissue is raised above the skin and
forms what looks like a hand that’s also an elongated canine
paw.

“It’s the mark of Heaven’s Hand,” she tells me.
“In some circles we’re called the Hounds of God.”

“It sounds like a cult.” It also sounds really
familiar.

She shrugs, affecting nonchalance, but her voice is
bitter. “Werewolf packs are like exclusive clubs. We’re not good
enough to join them, so what else are we supposed to do? Do you
know how rare it is to survive being bitten?”

“How did you two manage?” I press, still vying for
eye contact.

“The so-called cult.”

She finally meets my eyes, and I instantly
appreciate the sentiment of being careful what you wish for. The
sting I feel from her gaze fills me with remorse.

“I didn’t mean to judge.”

“They like to tell us there’s a better place than
all of this,” Madison continues as though it’s no skin off her
back. “You know, after we die. Josh believes it. But he did even
before he was bitten. Me? I find it pretty damn hard to
accept.”

I don’t know what to say. I’ve never given much
thought to life after death, let alone the state of my soul. I’m
just trying to be a decent human being. And I guess I’ve failed
even at that, what with me being a werewolf now. My eyes go back to
scanning the room and the sheets strewn across the bed.

“About last night,” I start without looking back
at her. “How ... um ... did I wind up in your bed? Did I ― did we ―
you know?”

Madison lets out an annoyed sigh. “Have sex?”

I nod, a little ashamed of the word in this
context.

“No,” she tells me adamantly. “I gave you some
Valium, and the last I saw you were on the floor out
cold.”

After I let out a sigh of relief, I squeeze her foot
and look to her apologetically.

“And really?” she presses. “That’s your biggest
concern right now? How about the fact that you were bitten but
turned into an actual full-fledged werewolf, unlike the rest of us
humans?”

Yeah. “That doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

“Clearly not. You’re human, you get bitten, you
become wolf-boy. End of story.”

As she runs through the standard timeline, I think
it through. After being bitten, I was brought to Boguet. What did
he do? Alter my genes? Turn me into one of his shifters like
Boadicea?

“I have to go.”

Releasing my hold on her, I boost myself up from the
floor. Standing upright again, I feel unsteady on my feet. Madison
takes the opportunity to brush her hand against the calf of my
borrowed cargo pants. Now that we’ve broken through whatever
barrier existed between us, physical contact is no longer
impossible.

“Where are you going?”

I hesitate, wondering how much I should tell her and
if revealing anything will draw her into danger. My general plan is
to contact Boadicea. All I want right now are answers, and Boguet
has them. As illuminating as it’s been sharing with Madison, it
doesn’t particularly help my situation. I need to find out what
happened between me being bitten and the time I spent at Boguet
Biotechnology.

“You have to trust someone right now,” she says.
“It might as well be me.”

“I don’t even trust my own judgment right now,
Madison,” I tell her with complete candor. “All I know is that I
have to find out the truth.”

She hugs her knee. “Well then, you should take a
shower first. You reek.”

“Thanks,” I say with a grimace as I make my way to
the exit. My hand pauses at the doorknob. “Um, does Madame Lefèvre
know I spent the night here?”

“This place?” she says, with a sweeping gesture.
“It’s not exactly what you think it is. So, yeah, she
knows.”

“Home for wayward werewolves?” I
venture.

“Something like that. Anyway, who says I’m
wayward?” she asks but doesn’t pause for an answer. “When you’re
done washing up, I can give you a ride to wherever you’re going. I
have a jeep.”

“Really, Maddy, that’s―”

She puts up a hand to silence me. I take it as a cue
to make my way to the bathroom and clean up the grime I’ve
accumulated overnight. Trying to wash away what’s going on
internally, though, that’s going to take more than a bit of soap
and hot water.

22. A
Girl, A Boy And A Graveyard

“W
here to?” Madison asks.

By the time I’ve showered she’s ready to go, her
damp hair done up in two braids with a black knit skullcap over
top. We sit in her old beater of an army jeep with a canvas roof
that barely keeps out the cold.

“Back to my place for now.”

As she starts the jeep, I send Boadicea a
text:
WAN2TLK
. We’re
silent as the vehicle pulls away from the curb. Maybe Madison’s all
talked out; I know I am, despite what needs to happen next. The
black hoodie she’s wearing is patterned with the white skull and
crossbones of what appears to be Hello Kitty. She drives the same
way she lives ― aggressively and without much concern for what
other people think. Whatever happens next will be so outside my
control that I can’t even be afraid. Ahead of me there’s Boguet to
contend with ― the man who assured me I was safe, who led me to
believe I could walk out during a full moon and not be a danger to
society. What would have happened had Madison not been there to
stop me? The rat could have been something bigger and much worse,
like a human. I shudder at the thought of it, the coppery taste of
blood ― or at least the memory of it ― still in my mouth. I’ve
never been betrayed on such a deeply genetic level
before.

A text message comes back:
A3
. Anytime, anywhere, anyplace. I toss locations
around in my head. The idea of going back to Boguet Biotechnology
makes me uneasy. It brings to mind a lamb going to slaughter. Père
Lachaise Cemetery. It’s the only place I can come up with on short
notice. Nearby and public, but not so crowded that we can’t have a
private conversation. And if I happen to die there, at least I’ll
be in good company. As I respond to Boadicea, I feel the motion of
the jeep slowing. Madison parallel parks outside my place but keeps
the engine running as I head back to the flat. In the butcher shop,
Arden is working behind the counter. He wears a black apron,
weighing deli for a customer. We make eye contact as I pass the
storefront, and he holds me in his sights for an inordinate amount
of time. Upstairs, there’s no sign of Amara. I expected her to be
here. With her absent, I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do.
In my bedroom I grab my backpack, toss in a change of clothes, my
passport and pull out the gun that Roul gave me. It’s been tucked
in the back corner of my dresser since I brought it up here, and
now I actually may need it, even if it’s just for show. On my way
out I leave a note for Amara explaining where I’ve gone and why, in
case something goes wrong. Before I leave, I scan the flat and have
a sense that it may be the last time I see the place.

Downstairs, Arden is leaning into the door of his
shop, wiping his hands on his apron. As I open the jeep door and
toss in my backpack, he calls out, “Where are you going?”

I hesitate before answering. Madison’s eyes tell
me,
Keep It
Simple
.

“Out,” I say, turning to face him.

“I guessed that on my own,” he growls as he
strides toward me.

“It’s none of your business.”

“You didn’t come home last night.”