Sylvan hadn’t responded to her request to talk to her. Drake had stayed at the hospital until midafternoon, studying the charts of the patients she and Sophia suspected had succumbed to Were fever. The patients were eerily similar—so much so that the coincidences continued to nag at her mind. All girls in their mid teens, all unidentified—assumed to be runaways. Three Caucasians, one Asian. All moderately malnourished, as if they hadn’t always lived on the streets. Drake knew the look. Growing up, she’d seen plenty of street kids cycled in and out of the state home—thin bodies and hard eyes. The girls had presented to the ER at intervals of about a month, which wouldn’t have been remarkable unless someone had been looking for it. She wasn’t surprised that no one had associated their deaths as part of a pattern.
Even she wasn’t entirely certain yet that it was. If the detective hadn’t shown up that morning and awakened her curiosity, she might never have put the picture together.
She had so many questions, and no answers. Why these girls? And what was it that had killed them? How had they gotten infected?
Turning out of the park, she started up New Scotland Avenue. She probably should just let it go. The Weres—in fact, all of the Praeterns—had managed to survive without the intervention of human medicine and science for millennia. But these patients weren’t Weres, and even if they were, she didn’t care. Because she did care.
She followed the winding driveway to the main ER entrance, wishing she knew how to reach Sylvan. She’d left a message on her answering machine at her Council office, but she didn’t hold out much hope for a response. Maybe Sophia would relay her request…
The sound of tires screeching behind her yanked her out of her aimless ruminations and back to stark reality. She jumped onto the bumper of a parked EMS van and clung to the door handle as a low, long black sedan roared past and slammed to a halt in front of the ER.
The rear door opened and a body rolled out onto the pavement. Then the car roared away.
“Someone get a gurney,” Drake shouted as she ran to the motionless naked girl lying facedown in the road. She turned her carefully, vaguely aware of people racing out of the ER toward her.
The girl couldn’t be more than fifteen. She was so pale. White, nearly bloodless. Pink froth covered her mouth. Drake wasn’t certain she was breathing. She rested her hand in the middle of a pitifully thin chest, hoping to feel respirations. The girl was hot. Burning up. Her temperature had to be 105 degrees. Her muscles were rigid. At this rate, she would seize any second.
“Get an IV in both arms,” Drake snapped to the two ER techs who now knelt on either side of the girl. One of the nurses pushed a crash cart over the uneven driveway toward her. “Set up a bicarb drip and get me a hundred milligrams of dantrolene.”
“Should we try to get her inside?” the nurse asked, handing Drake a pair of gloves.
Drake pulled them on automatically. “No, there’s no time.
Somebody get an ET tube ready. And page the Were medic on call STAT.”
The tech who had been about to start an IV jerked back. “Is she a Were?”
“I don’t know.” Drake looked up at him. “What difference does it make? Put that IV in.”
“Doctor,” the nurse said anxiously, “maybe we should wait?” The girl arched off the ground as if her body were an overtightened bow about to snap. Then she began to seize.
“Hell.” Drake slid her thumb into the corner of the girl’s mouth and gripped her chin, forcing her jaws to open a fraction. “Give me a laryngoscope and the ET tube.”
Drake eased the metal blade of the laryngoscope between the girl’s teeth, trying to move her tongue aside so she could see the vocal cords. The back of her throat was filled with thick, bloody fluid. She’d have to pass the tube blindly. Lifting a little more on the laryngoscope, Drake bent closer, the plastic ET tube held between her thumb and first two fingers. Just as she was about to slide it into the corner of the girl’s mouth, the girl convulsed violently, dislodging the laryngoscope. Drake tried to cushion the girl’s head to prevent her from injuring herself, and before she could even register the movement, the girl lashed out and sank her teeth into Drake’s forearm.
Chapter Twelve
Sylvan sent Val and Max into the park to search for the site where Misha and the boys were attacked. Misha’s blood would be easy to scent, and from there, Val could track the rogues back to their lair. When in pelt, Val was only slightly smaller than Max and just as muscular from her many hours in the forest on four feet.
No one would mistake the big gray wolves for dogs, but they were expert at disappearing in the shadows. Andrew parked the Rover along a darkened portion of the street bordering the south edge of the park while he and Sylvan waited for the others to pick up a trail.
Andrew had tied his thick, shoulder-length red hair back with a leather thong, and in his skintight black pants and T-shirt, he looked as delicately lethal as a stiletto. Sylvan wore tight leather pants and boots. Narrow leather bands encircled both biceps. Her bare chest glinted silver under the rising moon as her wolf prowled close to the skin. Her power filled the cab with a heady mixture of adrenaline and pheromones and Andrew growled softly, the crotch of his pants tenting at her call.
“Soon,” Sylvan murmured, rubbing the back of his neck. He turned his head and brushed his cheek against her palm.
“What if they can’t catch a scent?” Andrew asked.
“Fala gave us the locations of several rogue sightings in the last week. If we have to, we’ll check them all. But Val will find it,” Sylvan said, and as if her speaking the words were enough, a howl rose into the night. Sylvan tilted her head, listening. “They’re heading east, to the waterfront. Let’s go.”
Sylvan directed Andrew as she followed the scent and sound of her wolves through the streets. She pointed to an overgrown lot adjoining a decrepit warehouse that had once been a receiving station for South American cocoa beans, before containers allowed offloading directly from ships to eighteen-wheelers. “There.” Andrew cut the engine and let the Rover coast to a stop. Sylvan stepped out of the passenger side and surveyed the building. Part of the roof was caved in and many of the rectangular multipane windows were broken. The sliding cargo bay door hung half off its hinges. Max and Val appeared out of the darkness, panting, eyes shining with the thrill of the hunt.
“Andrew,” Sylvan murmured. “Join them.” Andrew shifted and all three wolves crowded close against Sylvan’s legs.
“If you smell Misha on any of them,” Sylvan said as she combed her fingers through the thick pelts of the wolves at her side, “bring them to me.”
Max whined, eager to hunt. Val’s heavy muscles trembled as she waited, poised, for her Alpha’s command. Sylvan threw back her head and howled, an eerie, haunting cry that cleaved the night and left the darkness to bleed. She swept both arms toward the windows on either side of the cargo bay doors. “Go.”
Max and Val streaked across the lot, gray shadows bounding over knee-high weeds. Sylvan raced with Andrew by her side, hitting the opening in the bay doors at the same time as Max and Val crashed through the windows and landed in the dank interior. Still in skin form, Sylvan howled again and her wolves snarled. Screams and garbled shouts erupted. Frantic footsteps pounded in the darkness. The stench of fear and sickness hung like clouds in the fetid air.