"Tourists," said Samuel in disgust. "Every year there are more and more people." I wondered if he was remembering what it had been like when he'd first been there.
We stopped and got enough fried chicken to feed a Little League team--or two werewolves, with a little left over for me. Adam ate again with restrained ferocity. Healing was energy-draining work, and he needed all the protein he could get.
When he was finished, and we were back on the road, with Samuel once again in the front, I finally asked, "What happened the night you were attacked? I know you've told Bran and probably Samuel, too, already--but I'd like to know."
Adam wiped his fingers carefully on the damp towelette that had come with our chicken--apparently he didn't think it was finger- lick'n good. "I'd pulled the pack in to introduce Mac, and to tell them about your adventures with his captors."
I nodded. "About fifteen minutes after the last of them left, about three-thirty in the morning, someone knocked on the door. Mac had just managed to regain his human form, and he jumped up to answer the door." There was a pause, and I adjusted the rearview mirror so I could see Adam's face, but I couldn't read his expression.
"I was in the kitchen, so I don't know exactly what happened, but from the sounds, I'd say they shot him as soon as he opened the door."
"Which was stupid," commented Samuel. "They'd know you had to hear the shots--even a tranq gun makes a pretty good pop."
Adam started to shrug--then stopped with a pained expression. "Damned if--excuse me, Mercedes--I'll be darned if I know what they were thinking."
"They didn't kill him on purpose, did they?" I said. I'd been thinking, too. A gun with silver bullets is a much more certain thing than a dart full of experimental drugs.
"I don't think so," Samuel agreed. "It looked like a massive allergic reaction to the silver."
"There was silver in the dart Mercedes found? Just like Charles thought?" asked Adam.
"Yes," said Samuel. "I've sent the dart off to the lab along with a sample of Mac's blood for proper analysis, but it looks to me as though they combined silver nitrate with DMSO and Special K."
"What?" I asked.
"Special K is Ketamine," Adam said. "It's been used as a recreational drug for a while, but it started out as an animal tranquilizer. It doesn't work on werewolves. Silver nitrate is used to develop film. What's DMSO?" "Silver nitrate is a convenient way to get silver in a solution," Samuel said. "It's used to treat eye infections, too--though I wouldn't recommend it for a werewolf."
"I've never heard of a werewolf with an eye infection," I said, though I understood his point.
He smiled at me, but continued to talk to Adam. "DMSO--Dimeythyl Sulfoxide. It has a lot of odd properties, but the one of most interest here is that it can carry other drugs with it across membranes."
I stared at the road ahead of me and put my right hand in front of the heater to warm it. The seals on my windows needed replacing, and the heater wasn't keeping up with the Montana air. Funny, I didn't remember being cold on the way over. No room for simple discomfort when you are trying to save someone, I guess.
"There was something in chem lab my freshman year," I said. "We mixed it with peppermint oil and put a finger in it--I could taste peppermint."
"Right," said Samuel. "That's the stuff. So take DMSO and mix it with a silver solution, and presto, the silver is carried throughout the werewolf's body, poisoning as it goes so that the tranquilizer, in this case, Ketamine, goes to work without interference from the werewolf metabolism that would normally prevent the drug from having any effect at all."
"You think Mac died from the silver rather than an overdose of Ketamine?" asked Adam. "They only shot him twice. I took at least four hits, maybe more."
"The more recent exposure you have to silver, the worse the reaction," said Samuel. "I'd guess that if the boy hadn't spent the last few months in their tender care being dosed up with silver, he'd have made it just fine."
"Obviously the silver nitrate and the Ketamine are relatively easily obtainable," Adam said after a while. "What about this DMSO?" "I could get it. Good stuff is available by prescription--I'd bet you could buy it at any veterinary supply, too."
"So they'd need a doctor?" I asked.
But Samuel shook his head. "Not for the veterinary supply. And I'd expect you could get it fairly easily from a pharmacy, too. It's not one of the drugs they'd track carefully. I'd expect they could make as much of their cocktail as they wanted to without much trouble."
"Great." Adam closed his eyes, possibly envisioning an invading army armed with tranquilizer dart guns.
"So they killed Mac," I said when it became apparent that Adam wasn't going to continue. "Then what happened?"
"I came charging out of the kitchen like an idiot, and they darted me, too." Adam shook his head. "I've grown used to being damn near bulletproof--served me right. Whatever they gave me knocked me for a loop, and when I woke up, I was locked up, wrist and ankle in cuffs. Not that I was in any shape to do anything. I was so groggy I could barely move my head."
"Did you see who they were?" I asked. "I know one of them was the human who accompanied the werewolf I killed at the garage. I smelled him in Jesse's room."
Adam shifted on the bench seat, pulling a little against the seat belt.
"Adam." Samuel's voice was quiet but forceful.