night, she heard a wolf howl.
Chapter 18
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Any progress finding Vance?
Dear Mrs. Carmichael-Rhodes,
Sorry for missing our scheduled update call this week. I’d just received some unexpected (and explosive) new information regarding your missing husband which required my full and immediate attention. Apologies for dropping out of contact for a few days, and thanks for pinging me to remind me to touch base with you.
I’ve got some good news and some bad news.
The good news is that I’m fairly certain now that your husband is not, in fact, having an affair.
The bad news is that he’s probably a werewolf.
Well, technically a hellhound. But for the sake of simplicity, let’s just call him a werewolf. Growls, howls, grows a shit load of extra body hair at will, etc.
I have reason to believe that he might have been bitten by a mysterious hellhound going by the name of Lupa. She’s got a record of turning people in order to recruit them to her cause. Last year, she gathered a ton of hellhounds into a pack and sent them to kill this big powerful ‘Thunderbird’ that goes around starting wildfires.
You might think that would make Lupa one of the good guys, but no. For a while everyone thought that the Thunderbird was starting fires out of malice, but it turns out it’s been trying to stop giant snake demons from erupting out of the ground and possessing people. According to traditional Lakota stories, there’s an ancestral feud between the Thunderbirds and Uncegila, who’s this demonic horned serpent queen who wants to feed the whole world to her hungry brood.
(It’s a long story. Don’t ask.)
Anyway, Lupa works for Uncegila, and it’s possible she bit Vance in order to force him to develop the anti-shift serum for her. No idea yet whether he was willing or unwilling, but it’s kind of irrelevant now since hellhounds are massively hierarchical. He’ll have to follow Lupa’s orders, since she’s his alpha. And he can’t leave her, even if he wanted to, because hellhounds without a pack go crazy.
(I cannot believe that some people want to be bitten and turned into hellhounds. The whole thing sounds like hell to me. Hahahaha I’m hilarious.)
Right, the anti-shift serum. I should explain that. See, there are a load of shifter firefighters who’ve been trying to stop Lupa. Nice people. Very friendly. Anyway, my guess is that Lupa needed a way to stop the hotshots from taking her down, so she got Vance to develop a serum that stops shifters from being able to transform.
How they’re making the serum is still a mystery. Wystan—he’s a paramedic, and also a unicorn (no, really)—has been trying to decipher Vance’s notebook. He thinks that Vance developed the serum from some kind of paralyzing venom, adjusting the chemistry so that it only affects a shifter’s animal rather than the whole body. Though what kind of venom he’s using, and where he’s getting it from, is still unknown. Believe me, I really want to find out the answer to that.
Anyway, I’m working on tracking Lupa down, and I’m still monitoring the traps I set for your husband as well. I’m certain that they’re working together. So if I find one of them, I’ll find the other.
And I have to find them.
It’s the only way I can help Fenrir.
“Um,” Blaise said from behind her. “Are you actually going to send that?”
Darcy sighed and closed the email without saving it to draft. “No. But it was therapeutic to let it all out.”
“I get that. But seriously, you know you can’t tell your client about shifters, right? We stay secret for good reason.”
“I understand. Our society doesn’t exactly have a good track record of dealing well with people who are different. Anyway, Elena would think I was crazy if I tried to tell her the truth.” She shut her laptop, swiveling to face Blaise. “I’ll compose something suitably bland and reassuring later. Was there something you needed?”
“It’s something you need, actually.” Blaise produced a steaming mug and a plate of cookies. “I brought you a midnight snack.”
“It’s not that late, is it?” She glanced at the time, and discovered it was. “Guess I lost track of time. Hazard of the job. Is that coffee?”
“Sorry. Hot chocolate.” Blaise handed it to her. “Assumed you’d be going to bed.”
Darcy shook her head as she snagged a cookie. “Got to keep working. Thanks for this.”
“Don’t thank me,” Blaise said enigmatically. She wriggled her fingers in the air. “I was just a pair