Page 75 of The Way You Bite
Chapter Twenty-Three
“I’ve got to put your first run on hold for a little bit. The moon isn’t yet up, so we have time.” Lexan glanced at the text again.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“There’s a facility here. I knew of the ones in Europe and Asia, but I wasn’t aware Blay operated one in Canada until we arrived here.”
“What kind of facility?”
“Let me show you.” He led her through the house, which was really a mansion, out the back into an upscale barn.
No obvious horses or other animals occupied the inside. In a tack room devoid of tack, he pulled up a saddle rack. A hidden door panel in the hardwood floor slid back, revealing a set of stairs leading down. The room beneath was cold and dark, but there was a door. Lexan stood there as if waiting. The door swung open. The space immediately lit with blinding light. She shielded her eyes as they walked into a glassed-in room. The cavernous underground facility was populated with people in white-and-baby blue scrubs.
“Put these on,” Lexan handed her a mask and latex gloves.
“Aren’t you?” She waved at the boxes of gloves and masks.
“I’m not at risk.”
She put on the mask and gloves. “What is here that I’m at risk to get but not you?”
“I’ll explain everything in a few minutes.”
“What is this place?”
“It’s a medical hospice where wolves with incurable disease come for treatment and to pass on.”
She glanced into a hospital room that looked more like a small apartment. Yet, it wasn’t depressing like a nursing home or as sterile as human facilities. A man rested in a bed, hooked up to an IV while he and a male nurse laughed at the episode ofGold Rushon TV.
“Their families let them leave when they’re dying?”
“There’s a lot of fear surrounding this disease. A lot of the unknown. Most were kicked out. Some chose to leave. We know a lot more about the disease now than we did even six months ago.”
“What kind of incurable disease? I thought you guys healed fast like we do and were immune to most human viruses other than rabies.”
“There’s someone we are here for you to meet.” Lexan’s eyes filled with sadness. He knocked on the door of a corner room. An accented male bid they enter. It was as if they’d stepped back into a spacious, late 1800s bedroom with the wood writing bureau, poster bed, and velvet upholsteredchairs and sofas.
A werewolf with dark, short-cut hair and the essence of an ancient sat in an antique wood recliner, which was simple, but looked dreadfully uncomfortable. The wolf put down his book. “Ah, Lexan. Thank you for…answering my request. You must be Velvet, Blay’s little girl.” He smiled. “I’m Jacob. This must all seem a lot to take in.”
“Good to meet you,” she said distractedly as she stared at the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves housing hundreds of cloth and leather-bound books.
Jacob waved at shelves. “Borrow whatever you wish. You look like your mother, whom I had the honor of meeting once. Such a wonderful female. I wanted to meet you before I die. It’s a selfish request, but I haven’t got long now, at least that’s what they tell me. Kidneys are at the end and all.”
“This is your uncle,” Lexan said softly.
Her gaze bounced off an antique copy ofThe First Book of Urizen, which looked original and had to be worth thousands of dollars. She had an uncle in this bizarre world where her father was an ancient werewolf. “What do you mean you don’t have long? You’re a werewolf. How in the world can a species capable of immense regeneration have an incurable disease?”
Jacob shot a confused glance at Lexan.
“She doesn’t know,” Lexan said. “About six years ago, our people started getting sick. Not many, but about one in a hundred or so. It’s not overtly contagious. Seemed to hit at random. Human medicine couldn’t figure it out and labeled it some sort of autoimmune condition. We started doing research. Blay’s scientists have had the most success in figuring out the specifics. It’s a virus designed to attack our species. Those who get sick were exposed to it, but they can’t pass it on.”
“Designed? As in a virus modified in a lab to target you? A biological weapon?”
“Yes. It causes a degenerative process where the body puts down deposits in all organs, but the body doesn’t recognize the deposits as abnormal. When there are too many deposits, the organ shuts down. Magical healers can’t seem to counter it.”
“Like Feline Infectious Peritonitis in cats?”
“I don’t know this disease.” Lexan glanced to Jacob.
