Page 62 of Wolf Bane
Ice bloomed in my veins, sharpening my senses until they were just focused on Celestine Clemens.Her snarl, her glittering eyes.Her thickening voice.It took almost more energy than I had to keep my mouth shut, to keep my reactions schooled.
“He left you, didn’t he?That’s what that Cleverly woman told you, hm?Left you and your mama.Let your mama just die for her sins.Drank himself to death somewhere, or maybe shot himself up with something?That what she told you?”
“I suppose it’s not uncommon knowledge,” I said slowly, swallowing the hard lump of fear in my throat.“I mean, how many folks out here have similar stories?Drug and alcohol abuse is endemic in many rural populations thanks to economics, lack of opportunity?—”
“Devereaux Babin,” she interrupted, her gaze far-off as she pulled something from her memory.“You know that name, hm?”
“My grandfather.He died before I was born.Over a decade before I was born.He?—”
“Was killed in a hunting accident in 1980,” she completed.“Or that’s what his family said.But we know better.Tina-Marie Goode.Your granny, hm?Had an accident driving down the river bend in 1979.Your daddy was just a tiny little thing then, hm?”She shook her head, tsking sadly.“Gil Thomas, bad case of food poisoning.Died in ‘86.Horrible what happened to the Lovett family, wasn’t it, back in ‘99?Do you remember them?”
A twinge of remembered grief—Sonny Lovett had been a friend of mine in school.We’d played at recess every day until one day we didn’t.Aunt Cleverly had been the one to tell me why my teachers were so sad—Sonny and his family had all died in a weird accident.Carbon monoxide poisoning, in the middle of a Texas spring when no one ran their heaters.
At the time, it hadn’t made sense because kids don’tdie.And the fact Sonny had, had fucked up my world view in ways that took me years to untangle.It’d made me paranoid.It’d made Cleverly paranoid, too.Always checking our AC unit, two winters of using tiny space heaters and electric blankets instead of the central heating.Haunting my side whenever I stepped out the front door.
“What are you talking about?”I finally managed to rustle out of my fear-dry throat.
“This little area of ours has a bad history of accidents.Of illness.”She finally focused her gaze back on me, her entire body fairly quivering with a barely restrained shift.“It’d be a tragedy in other circumstances.”
Vinnie’s heavy steps preceded his looming presence behind Celestine.“She’s good,” he said, pinning me with a glare.“You can go now, Doctor Babin.”
“Ms.Clemens,” I began, but she shook her head.
“I’ve given you enough to be getting on with,” she said dryly.“You’re a smart one, I’ve heard.Too bad about Ethan Stone being one of those mongrel-lovers.It’s folks like you that’re destroying our communities.Tainting us with the human softness.”She sniffed, glancing up at Vinnie.“Show him to the door, Vincent.”
“Mr.Robards shifted in my exam room,” I said flatly, confidentiality be damned in this one instance.“After your Melly bit him.After you gave him a painkiller.He’s not one of you.Hell, he’s not even something like me.What happened, Ms.Clemens?Whatreallyhappened?”
Her expression, so carefully cruel before, slipped towards surprise, maybe even shock, before she wrangled it back into neutral lines.
“Sounds to me like someone’s a liar,” she said finally.“Vinnie.”
Vinnie reached as if to grab me by the arm, but I twisted away, taking myself to the door, waiting for him to unlock it as I turned to look back at Celestine.
“Whatever’s happening to the folks out here, to the ones in the other communities, there’s a good chance it could affect your family too, Ms.Clemens.”
Her smile was downright cheerful at that.“Oh, I don’t think so, Doctor Babin.We’re pure.Our blood is good blood.”
Jesus.
Vinnie didn’t give me another second to argue.He crowded me through the front door, following a hair’s breadth from my back as I headed for my car.Next door, the champagne SUV had been joined by a battered black truck that looked familiar until I reminded myself I lived in Texas, where battered black trucks were the state animal.
Still.
It was pinging something for me.
I stared at it for just a few seconds, trying to parse out why, even with Vinnie literally breathing down my neck, my inner red alert sirens were going off.Vinnie didn’t let me have my moment though, instead bumping his chest against my arm, pushing me against the car door.
“You’re the only doctor for a hundred and twenty miles in either direction weres can see without being outed.”
“Somehow you’re making that sound like an insult,” I noted, pushing back.“I’m trying to help you, Vinnie.Help the entire were and shifter community.Communities,” I corrected at the flash of anger in his eyes.“And right now, there’s some bullshit going on that looks like a targeted attack on weres and shifters.Someone is trying to cause some significant harm and probably deaths.Hell, peoplehavedied, Vinnie.Because someone is playing some fucking games with your lives.Someone is out there, passing out poison to folks and it’s definitely fucking intentional, Vinnie.And whatever happened to Mr.Robards?It sounds an awful lot like someone in your family is part of this whole thing.His symptoms?Just like the folks that are dying out there.”
Vinnie hadn’t moved during my rant, butwolfradiated from him in thick, heavy waves that swamped my senses to the point my own body was reacting, trying to push that wolf part of me to the surface.It was still new, this whole shifting thing, and I couldn’t manage a complete one.Just some partial horror that made me feel like I’d been hit by several trucks afterwards.And it wasn’t something I could easily control, either.It seemed, so far anyway, dependent on heightened emotions.Ethan liked to tease me that it was like the old Hulk show.They wouldn’t like you when you’re angry, Lan.
Right now, Vinnie and that damn truck were doing a fine job of heightening those emotions.
“There’s not a damn thing I can do to stop whatever it is you’re involved in, Vinnie.But maybe you can really consider what’s going on.It’s clear y’all know more than you’re letting on, and whatever it is, it’s getting people killed.”
He stood there as I got into the car and started it up, only stepping back when it was apparent I had zero problem running over those size thirteen feet if need be.
