Released from his retelling, Ivar shrugged and reached for his whiskey.
“I’ve been reading that echinoderms—starfish—regrow to complete size from one arm and a portion of the central disk.” That had been one of her more interesting discoveries.
“I’d rather not picture six more big brothers.”
“Don’t be facetious.” She glared at Wulf as Ivar drained another glass. “I’m thinking about how to fix his arm.” Ideas welled up like lava, the hot excitement of untangling a research puzzle filling her the way it always had when she’d walked into her thesis advisor’s lab. “There’s a study that shows that an injection of a single-strand type of RNA molecules can enable live chicks to regenerate a wing.”
“Not a language I speak, Doc.” Wulf grinned. “Can you translate to plain English? Could that counteract what Unferth did to my brother?”
“I don’t know. Honestly, it could make it worse.” This part had scared her yesterday. “Something similar resulted in a flatworm regrowing a tail where it should’ve had a head.”
“I am not interested in having an appendage other than a hand at the end of my arm.”
“He’s already a big enough dick,” Wulf muttered. “Doesn’t need a spare.”
“Beg your pardon?” His brother stared back with one raised eyebrow.
“I was saying that near the prison in Marrakesh, I saw a five-legged dog.”
“Are you certain that wasn’t your brain between its rear legs?” The insult seemed to revive Ivar enough that he ate a bite of steak. “No one removed my ears.”
Concealing her laughter by coughing into her napkin, Theresa felt a bubbling desire to share more of her research. “I’ve been reading a lot.” She’d spent days immersed in the office Wulf had created for her. Interesting and intriguing days, fascinating days, but lonely days. Maybe since her theories were about their condition, they’d want to know. “Symbiotic microbes can enhance their hosts, like a glowing bacteria that helps squid improve their camouflage. I know you think you have a virus, but I’m more inclined to believe you have a parasite or bacterial infection, because their genomes are so much bigger and they’re more likely to need an intermediate host like Grendel before they can become infectious. Like malaria needs mosquitoes.”
From the corner of her eye she saw Wulf’s grin, the one that meant she was babbling. For the first time in days, instead of grooves leading down from his mouth, he had tiny crinkles around his eyes, as if he wanted to laugh, so she took a deep breath and offered her latest, craziest idea. “If we started our own research lab, we could isolate and perhaps treat the immortality.” She couldn’t read Ivar’s expression, but Wulf’s was dubious.
“With Unferth hunting us, being mortal again doesn’t sound as good as it once did,” he said. “And that’s the point of a cure, right?”
“You’ve missed the point, brother.” Ivar’s voice scratched over the table. “What if Unferth were mortal?” His good hand made a fist next to his dinner plate as he leaned toward her, the most engaged she’d seen him since meeting him. “I will give you anything you need to achieve that. Money, a lab, assistants—they’re yours. What will it take?”
“I don’t know.” Her heart pounded as she realized how far beyond her expertise pursuing this idea would lead. “For starters, I’ll need to compare your DNA to a sample of Grendel’s. The commonality should be the infectious organism.”
Both men stared at her without comprehension.
“I need DNA from Grendel’s bones or blood.”
Whatever language they used had the unmistakable rhythm of profanity.
“It only requires a tiny amount of bone or tissue. Like what would be in the hilt of a sword.” Every version of the epic referred to Beowulf bringing the damaged sword hilt back from his journey to the deep where he’d confronted Grendel’s mother.
“After fifteen hundred years?” Wulf asked.
“A research institute in Germany sequenced a mastodon’s mitochondrial DNA from a fifty-thousand-year-old tooth.” She cocked her head to one side. “Surely those giant beasts had finished walking the planet when you all began your fateful trip?”
Wulf began to hum a familiar television theme until his brother glared him into silence.
“Or I could use Grendel’s arm or skull.” She’d flagged those references in the story as well, because if the bones could be located, they might be helpful to the puzzle. “They could have extractable genetic material.”
“The skull was lost in 1945 between the Nazis and the Soviet Red Army. The arm is too secure.” Ivar ticked off his objections. “It will have to be the hilt.”
“Stig could steal the arm.” Wulf mentioned someone she assumed was another immortal.
“I’ll inquire when I reach him. You realize Unferth may already have the skull? He commanded a Nazi Kunstschutz unit to loot on the Eastern front.”
How long would it take before references to their past didn’t make the hair on her arms stand up?
“Reason to secure the other artifacts quickly.” Underneath Wulf’s measured and rational speech, she detected a hint of excitement, as if he’d been assigned a new mission.
“I have much to think about.” Ivar stood, as if dismissing them from dinner. “Good evening.”
As he left the room, Theresa noticed he’d left his whiskey next to his plate.
Wulf lifted her hand from his thigh. She’d forgotten it was still there. Instead of letting go like she’d expected, he lifted it to his lips. Pressed a kiss to her palm. His strength, so long held away from her, flooded her from that connection. They’d get better, all of them, together. She’d taken the first steps down that road, and she planned to take another. Tonight Wulf wasn’t going to sleep in the chair across the room. He’d spend the night where he belonged: beside her.
Although Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was an hour behind Eastern time, Wulf doubted calling at 10:00 p.m. would interrupt dinner. The team would’ve redeployed home in late November, the same time he was searching Rabat and Marrakesh for Ivar, and Deavers and Kahananui and the others would’ve shared the holidays with their families. Last year he’d eaten turkey with Deavers and Kristin. She’d been pregnant with a second child. This year’s Christmas would’ve included the new baby.
He had at least an hour before he could slip upstairs without finding Theresa awake, so he’d started to pack. The air was stuffy in Ivar’s basement storage room, but the shelves were so well organized that Wulf could lay his hands immediately on what he needed for his trip. That left him free to stare at the phone. If redeployment went true to form, by this point the team would be restless. He could picture Kahananui working in his yard, cursing the cold, and Cruz closing down one too many bunny bars despite his claims to be reformed, because over the years he’d helped both with their preferred pastimes. Deavers would be throwing himself into All-American fatherhood as hard as he tackled mission planning, but since his wife didn’t need a movement order, a rally point or an extraction plan, he’d feel a little unappreciated about now. That’s the way two and a half months home usually panned out, with loose ends and lots of trying to build a routine. After three months, they usually hit their stride and found a rhythm preparing for the next deployment.
He missed the team. Ivar had shut him out, and even though she hadn’t rejected his touch at the dinner table, Theresa couldn’t possibly want more from him. The team would want him. And, because he didn’t trust himself to succeed without someone guarding his back, a job Ivar wasn’t ready to undertake, he punched a number in from memory.
“Deavers here.” His friend’s voice was brusque and quiet, the way he always answered a nighttime call in a house with sleeping kids.