Hellbender - Dana Cameron Page 0,49

tell you: I’ve never seen anything like you. You’re different. You can talk, you’re not . . . vicious.”

A short barking laugh. “I wouldn’t say that. They said I was slated to be the next model, Mark Three. They kept more brains and this time, unfortunately, got more ethics as well.” He coughed again. “First time I’ve disappointed someone for being smart. When they found out I’m not one of those hyped-up, meth-head wolf wannabes, that I was protesting what they told me to do, they chucked me in here.”

“Maybe you could do something about these ropes?”

“Yeah, sure.”

The creature stepped closer, and I could see him now—upright, bipedal, same gray skin as the Fellborn, but his skin was less baggy and his lupine face had far more humanity than theirs. A tightening, briefly, a pinch where claws caught my flesh, and then my arms fell uselessly to my sides, limp with lack of proper circulation. “Thanks.”

There was a long pause before he spoke again. “You know that’s the first time I’ve found something useful about this form. I ought to thank you.”

It occurred to me that I was thinking of it as a him. “What’s your name?”

“Max.”

“I’m Zoe.”

He sniffed the air, a rough, wuffing sort of noise. “Zoe, I have two important questions for you.”

“Shoot.”

“You’re Fangborn of some sort, aren’t you? An oracle, maybe?”

That took me by surprise, but it shouldn’t have. Of course he knew about the Fangborn. “Werewolf. With some . . . alterations.”

That struck a chord with him. “Your ‘alterations’ come from them?” He jerked his head toward the door.

“No. Mine are . . . complicated. I was trying to find out more about them when I ended up here.” I remembered my manners. “And you?”

“Oh, a human. Born and bred,” he said, with another one of those hoarse laughs. “I was with the TRG. Just a security guard, but I saw some stuff. When the organization was dissolved, I had a friend who said I could come along with him, get a job with the Order. I didn’t like what I saw, but it was too late, and when I tried to bail, they said I would be the next guinea pig. But let’s face it, Zoe, you gotta use the past tense. Whatever I once was, this is what I am now.”

The desolation of his voice was so great, I felt as if I were looking over an open grave. “Maybe not. Maybe there’s a way to reverse it.”

I knew it was stupid as soon as I’d said it. The report on the fragmented information we’d taken from the lab we’d raided in Istanbul had told us there didn’t seem to be any way to reverse or undo the effects. And now Porter, the man behind it all, was dead, and all his secrets with him.

“What’s your other question?” I asked when the pause between us grew too uncomfortable.

“I would give ten years of my life for a cigarette. You don’t smoke, do you?”

I almost laughed at the pathetic look in his eyes but remembered how hard it had been for Sean to quit. “No. Sorry.”

“I should have known. They wouldn’t let you keep them anyway.” Max stood up and dusted himself off. It was surprising to see such a human gesture from the sort of—well, I couldn’t well call Max a Fellborn—a creature I’d thought of as a mindless, wanton killer.

“Well, there’s only one thing for it,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“You and me are going to bust out of here, soon as you can walk and fight.”

I looked around; I wouldn’t tell him that it wouldn’t take long for me to be up. Not yet, anyway. “The door is steel, locked, and I assume, guarded by assholes with clubs, some kind of amped-up gas that works miracles against me. Lots of guns. There is one window that I can see, and that’s barred. And whatever shit they injected into me earlier is still really fucking with my head.”

He loped over and tried the window. “It’s barred, but it feels like there’s a little movement to it. I think with the two of us, we might be able to pull it off.”

I raised myself up cautiously, feeling like someone had dropped an ax between my eyes. My legs weren’t all that cooperative, but I hobbled over. When I saw what he was talking about, I knew my new friend believed in fairy tales.

“You’re crazy. Even if we could move the grate, we’d never fit through it.