Primeval (Werewolf Apocalypse Book 2) (2 page)

“Sadly, yes.”

“And this is just the beginning. You see my column about the rats?”

“There are always stories about rats in New York. We deal in tabloid journalism.”

“This isn’t any ‘a rat ate my baby’ scenario, buddy. These are two and three footers, pouring out of the sewers.”

“I read it. Then, they all scampered back to their lairs underground. Didn’t they make a movie of that back in the eighties? Put rat tails on dachshunds or something?”

“These aren’t made up dogs,” John grumbled. “These were real. I have witnesses…”

“Who had just finished a couple of quarts of Guinness…”

“That doesn’t mean they didn’t see what they saw.”

“If they saw little green men from the moon, would you print that too?”

John ran his other hand through his hair, causing his bangs to flop down into his eyes. He was so excited, he ignored the intrusion.

“If there was more than one witness, then, yeah, maybe I would.”

“John, listen to me,” the older man said, leaning forward and trying to look like a real editor, like one of those giants at
The Times
. “You did a good story. Giant monster rats. We’ve already received a ton of mail on that one.”

“Really? A ton?”

“Maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but you get my point. This is something new. At least it doesn’t have anything to do with the Lycan Virus.”

“Or does it?” John stage-whispered. He almost added a dramatic dum – dum – dummmm. Somehow, he contained himself.

“You’re going to tell me these were – what? Were-rats?”

“Exactly. I think the virus is jumping species.”

“Jesus Christ,” Steve Debarr said, opening the top drawer to his massive desk and removing a bottle of Ibuprofen. He palmed four and swallowed them dry. “And we’ve come full circle.”

“Hey, this is a big story. I mean, BIG!”

“John, think about it. Wouldn’t you suspect the government or some scientist would have come forward to tell everyone that the virus is mutating? That it’s affecting other kinds of animals?”

“Steve,” John said, the disdain practically dripping from his lips. “This is the
World Weekly News
. The government isn’t going to share anything with us. Neither is any self-respecting scientist. I am writing these important stories…”

“…about giant were-rats.”

“…and across the page is ‘Bigfoot Marries Pamela Anderson.’”

“Hey, that guy had pictures. You didn’t have any pictures.”

“I’ll get them,” John said, standing from the chair, his magnificent orange-brown skin flashing in the light from the window. “If I have to wait all day in the sewers.”

“That’s sort of what I had planned for you,” Steve Debarr said, seizing the opportunity to get in a few words.

“What are you telling me, Steve, buddy, old pal?”

“I’m your editor, and I have a story for you.”

“Uh oh,” Steve moaned, deflating back into the chair. “That means you’re assigning me to something serious.”

“You want a real story?”

“Giant rodents don’t count?”

“Shitfire, no! And don’t even think of bringing up the werewolf thing…”

“But it’s mutating. Listen to that word, Steve. Mutating. It’s a beautiful word. Sort of rolls off the tongue. Mutating.”

“It’s boring copy.”

“What if the Lycan Virus is mutating so that it’s a blood strain? What if it’s becoming like rabies. You bite someone, they turn. For all time. Screw the moon. Screw lunar cycles. It’s happening out there right now in some of those crazy chapels.”

The editor rolled his eyes, knowing that he’d better switch topics before John refused to go out on any assignment that didn’t involve a furry monster.

“I have an interview for you. And before you start, no, he is not a werewolf.”

“Well, I already did one of those. Still, I’d like to get at one of the mutant creatures.”

Debarr sighed. If Creed wasn’t such a good writer—okay, who was he kidding, such an exploitive writer that came so damned cheap—he’d toss him out of the office. But the guy knew how to spin a yarn, how to write copy that sounded if not entirely, then almost, true.

“You’re interviewing a mole man.”

John Creed stared at him, blinked a few times, and remained silent for a nearly miraculous thirty seconds. Debarr basked in the momentary tranquility.

“What’s that?” John finally asked. “Some other sort of were-rodent?”

“No, a real guy from underneath the subway system,” Debarr said, and he started to get excited about the story all over again. “The fellow came to me the other day, name of Michael Keene. Dirty guy, rail thin. He’s one of the homeless who live in the abandoned tunnels beneath the subway system. Apparently, there’s this whole microcosm of people living down there, almost like a little city in and of itself. A New York underneath New York.”

“Can I use that?” John asked, pen and notepad already in hand.

“Feel free. You’re to meet him near the McDonald’s in Times Square. Buy the poor guy a Happy Meal or something.”

“You want human interest on this?”

“Give me two thousand words, a big feature. I want to know how he lives, who lives with him, how they survive, what brought him to this lowly state.”

“Yeah, okay, I think I have it. How will I know the dude?”

“He’ll be the skinny, dirty guy by the McDonald’s in Times Square.”

“Nice.”

“You have an hour to get there, and I want this to be a serious article. No monsters. No werewolves. No giant alligators in the sewers…”

“I swear, I didn’t make that up. I know someone who really saw them. Great big mothers, too.”

“Uh, yeah. Listen, just give me two thousand words on what it’s like to fall from grace. Give me the human face on the tragedy.”

“Your wish is my command, boss.” Creed stood again and headed for the door. “I’ll get you a damn good story. I’ll even go down into the freaking sewers with Mole Man.”

“Good.” Debarr let out his breath. It was all going to be fine.

“And,” John continued. “If I get some snaps of the giant rats in their lair, it’ll be icing on the cake. See you tonight, Boss.”

Steve Debarr put his head in his hands and slumped down onto the polished top of his desk. His cigar was crushed.

11:20 a.m.

The hotel wasn’t the best and it wasn’t the worst in the five boroughs, but it was a minor paradise to Sandy Martin. The twenty-eight-year-old woman sat in a chair, looking out the window at the people on the streets below her vantage point high above Brooklyn. Tossing a curly blond lock of hair out of her eyes, she thought
, I hate to even think such a cliché, but they really do look like ants.
Her breath steamed up the glass, and she backed away, settling into the leather chair.

In the bathroom, the shower was running, and she could hear her lover singing softly. She didn’t recognize the tune, but that wasn’t unusual. They had such differing tastes in so many things, music being the least of them. Sandy just sighed and reached for the remote control. She flicked on the news.

A talking head with a scrolling banner beneath it was yakking again about what the American government ought to do about the growing Lycanthrope population.

The man said, “They need to be contained. I don’t really care if they enjoy being animals, that’s everyone’s God-given right – but I don’t want them as neighbors. I don’t want them teaching or trying to influence my kids. They should be contained someplace. That’s all I am saying.”

A woman popped into view, thin, less than attractive, but more than plug ugly. She interrupted the man sharply. “You don’t understand them. Can’t you see you’re letting fear dictate policy for you? Shoving a whole segment of the population into some magical island refuge is inhuman.”

“Well,” the man said, “they aren’t actually human when you get down to the biology of the matter.”

Sandy switched the channel to MTV, where a couple of pneumatic women were screeching at each other in a bar on a beach in New Jersey.

“Whatever happened to the music?” she asked nobody in particular.

“What?” asked her lover’s voice from the bathroom. “What did you say?”

“Nothing,” Sandy answered, lowering the volume so she could be heard over the running water. “Just wondering why there isn’t any music on MTV anymore.”

She heard the squeak of the faucets being turned, and then the splashing stopped. She watched the two women graduate from screaming to hair pulling. In another moment, Nicole Truitt entered the room. Sandy looked away from the television, marveling for the thousandth time that this woman was her girlfriend.

Nicole was tall and lithe, with well-developed abdominal muscles and sharply defined features. Her cheekbones could cut glass. Her dark brown hair was chopped short, military fashion, and it still dripped from the shower. Her breasts were barely contained by the white hotel towel wrapped around her mid-section. Her dark brown eyes peered at Sandy through beads of water that clung to her eyelashes.

“Why are you watching this crap?” she asked, flopping down on the bed next to Sandy’s chair.

“Everything else is news,” she answered. “I hear enough about the werewolves from you on your off-hours. I don’t need to hear about them when I want to be entertained.”

Nicole snatched the remote control from Sandy and started flipping stations. She asked, “What were they saying? Anything new?”

Sandy growled a little in the back of her throat and knocked Nicole onto her back. The towel fell open a bit.

“We’re on vacation, Nicole. I haven’t seen you in two months, and you finally get leave for a while, but you just can’t put the snipers behind you.”

“Stop it. That tickles.”

“What if I do this?”

“Stop it. You’re gonna make me pee.”

“We have two whole days before you go back on duty, and I intend on taking advantage of that. It’s why we’re in New York.”

“Well, I would’ve chosen someplace more isolated so we could get away from it all. The seashore comes to mind.”

Sandy lay next to her lover, facing the ceiling, and Nicole knew she’d stepped too far. They remained in silence for several moments before Sandy broke the spell.

“You know why we’re here,” she said.

“Yeah. Shit. Sorry. Me and my big mouth.”

“I still haven’t gone there, to the 9/11 site, I mean. Ever since Timmy died, I couldn’t face it.”

“You want me to go with you today, honey?” Nicole touched her arm.

Sandy shook her head. “No. I think I need to see it alone, be with his spirit for a while. You never knew him.”

“But you loved him, and that’s enough in my book.” Nicole draped an arm over Sandy’s shoulders. She was still a little damp from the shower. “I can be with you if it’s gonna be tough, and it probably will be.”

“No, I’ll go alone. Have my moment with Timmy. See what they’re putting up as a monument. Then, I’ll do a little shopping and meet you back here at five o’clock, in time for dinner.”

“You know General Burns is in the city, too. Just down the hall as a matter of fact. The man can’t take a vacation without following us.”

Sandy nodded. “It’s a little creepy if you ask me.”

Nicole jumped off the bed, letting the damp towel fall to the floor. Opening the closet door, she removed a pair of jeans and a red T-shirt with a faded Tab logo on it. As she dressed, she watched Sandy in the mirror of the closet door, saw her girlfriend’s drooping face.

Nicole said, “I think it’s more like desperation. He doesn’t have anybody except the Lycan Snipers. We were both there that day when it started in Cincinnati, and he’s developed a sort of dependency on me. I don’t think it’s anything more than the fact that the two of us understand each other so completely. No one else was with us when we were making those decisions. No one else has been with us every time we had to take out a group of the beasts. It’s not a happy place to be, you know, being in charge of killing off mutants.”

“Nice work if you can get it.”

“Yeah, but it changes you. I know you don’t fully understand.”

“I try.”

“And it’s one of the reasons I love you so much,” Nicole said with a grin. She returned to the bed and held Sandy’s hands in hers. “But it’s only a part of it. You’ve seen more of me than anyone else, even Burns. You know what’s inside me.”

“Yeah. Beneath that hard, cold exterior is the pink heart of a bleeding romantic.”

Nicole snorted. “Whatever. I’m just a soldier.”

“Soldiers can have hearts, too.”

“Not when our country’s threatened by enemies, and these Lycans are definitely enemies. They’re spreading this disease, changing it, and I don’t know how we’re gonna fight it anymore.”

“You’ll find a way. I believe in you.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Sandy leaned over and kissed Nicole. Pulling back, she smiled at her girlfriend.