Moonlight Medicine: Inoculation (16 page)

“What if someone stumbles in on him?”

“That’s what the key is for, but trust me, after almost three weeks of working nights down in that lab, I can assure you that no one goes down there in the middle of the night but Kim and me.”

“I don’t know, Evie. He could still hurt himself, and if we aren’t there to watch him, how will we know if he’s not in control?”

“Truthfully, he could hurt himself whether we’re there or not, and we can either try to set up a camera or, even less complicated, we could just put something in there with him like a teddy bear. Chances are, if he’s not in control, he’ll shred it, especially if we tell him what it’s for.”

“Evie, do you think that he could be saying these things just because he wants to fight so badly? Making up this whole story about going feral?”

“You haven’t seen him, David. Whether it’s true or not, he’s truly afraid. I’ve only seen him like that once before.”

“Okay, but just to be sure, let’s see if we can set up a camera, and put in the teddy bear. We’ll tell him about the bear, but not the camera, that way if he just goes crazy for five minutes and then sits there we’ll know he’s faking.”

“I agree, but what if he is faking? How are we going to convince him not to fight then?”

“I don’t know. I guess we’ll just have to cross that chasm if we get to it.”

*

As she had spent the drive up thinking of ways to convince Clem not to fight, Evelyn spent the way down trying to figure out what to say to bolster his confidence and help him regain his swagger. Battling his morose silence, she chattered about the shooting and events since, but he remained uncharacteristically taciturn, so Evelyn tried a different tactic as they sped southward through the pouring rain.

“Kim is dying to meet you.”

“That right?”

“Yep. We’ve told her so much about you, and how we never could have thwarted the Vulke without you.”

“Mmmm.”

“I also told her about your great sense of humor and how laid back you always are.”

Clem stared out the window at the deluge. “Sorry to make you look like a liar.”

 “Well, actually, you’re not the only one going to make me look bad. I told you all about Kim’s energy, enthusiasm, and bubbling attitude, and before I left she was moping around like a pre-teen on the first Christmas morning she got more school clothes than cool stuff.”

Clem made a non-committed noise in the back of his throat.

“You didn’t mention my hair.”

“Suits ya.”

“Yeah, mine’s good, but wait till you see David.”

Clem finally turned to look at her with a tiny bit of life behind his eyes. “The pup a ginger too? Ya’ll trying to pass for brother and sis now?”

“Oh no, wait till you see.”

“Aw, come on now, Evie, how am I gonna’ come up with the real zingers if I can’t prepare?”

Evelyn grinned. “Nope, you’ll just have to wait.”

“Pretty please with ice cream on top?”

“Oh, alright. Roberto had them bleach his hair,
and
his eyebrows.”

“Oooo, this is gonna’ be good.”

He wasn’t quite the old Clem, but Evelyn decided that he would do for now.

26

When they finally arrived at the condo, it was around five in the evening and Kim was just getting up. As she and David met them at the door, Clem shook Kim’s hand with a bit of forced charm. “Evie here told me a whole heap ‘o’ a lot about you, but she ne-glect-ed to mention the pretty part.”

Blushing, Kim withdrew her hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you. Evelyn told me you were a charmer.”

“Only for rattlesnakes, I reckon.” Clem winked at Kim then turned as if scanning the room. “But where’s Mr. Alphaman done run off to and who’s the towhead?”

David pulled him into a man-hug. “Ha, ha, ha, very funny.”

“I’ll think ‘o’ some better ones, jest give me a minute.”

David released him. “Well, I hope that you can think and eat at the same time. What do you say to chicken casserole?”

“I say, I’ll have another helping please.”

Soon they were all seated at the dining room table, David, Evelyn, and Clem eating the casserole, while Kim ate her “breakfast” of BooBerry cereal.

Clem stared at Kim’s bowl. “Not a fan of David’s cookin’?”

Kim swallowed down a mouthful of the cereal. “Oh no, he’s a great cook. I am working nights, and when I wake up, I can’t eat dinner food.”

“But you can eat…” Clem picked up the box. “BooBerries?”

“Oh yeah, they’re my favorite…”

Clem raised an eyebrow.

“Really.”

“If you say so.”

Evelyn chuckled, but Clem’s forced quips and banter were painful for her to witness. Finishing her meal quickly, when Kim went upstairs to get ready to go to the lab, Evelyn went into the basement to send Dr. Jonson an e-mail about getting her the key for the old janitor’s closet and to give Clem and David a chance to catch up.

Evelyn really wanted to get back into the lab herself, but the Wolfkin cycle was so close now, it was highly unlikely that they would have any big breakthroughs before the battle, so she concentrated on Clem. After Kim left, the three of them sat down and Evelyn and David told Clem of their plans to lock him up and observe him from the second day before the full moon. Clem agreed, saying that it was likely the safest way. They set Clem up in David’s bedroom and David on the pullout couch in the basement, much to Clem’s annoyance, but Evelyn told him that having to traverse both the basement stairs and the stairs to the second level were not so much physical therapy for a man with a cane as much as a guaranteed head injury.

Clem went to bed soon after and David and Evelyn hung back in the basement to discuss things without Clem hearing. Sitting quietly, Evelyn gathered her thoughts as David stared at the wall. Eventually he spoke, but avoided looking at her.

“I’m a little nervous about Kim this full moon. She’s still so young, and the battle is going to be a crazy environment for a newbie Wolfkin. We’re going to have to do a huge amount of work on control in the next few days.”

“Have you spoken to her about it?”

“A little, but I thought maybe you could talk to her too.”

“Sure. We also have to find a place for us to be with her during the change.”

“What about that woodlot you were telling me about near the vet school on the edge of campus? I don’t want to get too far away from Clem, in case…”

“Baker Woodlot? I dunno if that’s such a great idea. It’s kinda close to campus, and what if Kim gets out of hand?”

“I think she’ll be okay, but it’s up to you.”

Evelyn chewed at her lower lip trying to decide. “I guess there is a pretty high gate around it, and the mud usually keeps most students out this time of year, especially at night. Let’s just hope that Green Spiral isn’t out there communing with nature.”

“Environmental club?”

“Pagans actually. Nice people. I thought about joining in undergrad, but just never got around to going to a meeting. Any more word from Roberto?”

“Roberto says that the Vulke are going to wait until the day of the fight to tell us which site will be the final site, probably to prevent any serious preparations or shenanigans on our side. He talked to many of the other packs, but he got mixed reactions to my idea. Some of the packs just don’t think it will work at all, some are worried that it will backfire and just confuse and enrage the strays further, and some think that it’s cheating.”

“Cheating? What about the Vulke bolstering their ranks with innocent meat shields? That’s not cheating? Idiots. But not knowing where the site is until the last minute, won’t that make it hard to get the deer carcasses where they need to be?”

“Difficult, but not impossible. Actually, Dr. Jonson is good friends with a veterinary pathologist at the vet school and due to the tuberculosis testing on wild deer in Michigan we have plenty of access to deer carcasses. We just set up two helicopter pilots willing to do the drop. One is Madeline’s cousin and she’ll be ready to go at the upper peninsula site, but the other is just some local pilot who Dr. Jonson convinced will be dropping carcasses baited with rabies vaccine to prevent the spread of raccoon rabies.”

Evelyn nodded knowingly and gave a bitter smile. “Clever, and not a little ironic.” She inhaled deeply to stem her emotions. “This is really happening, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m going to be there. I’m going to fight. I feel responsible in a way. I need to do this.”

David looked into Evelyn’s fierce eyes and knew that he was defeated. “I know.”

*

The next day Evelyn left the condo early to prepare the janitor’s closet for Clem. First she went to the lab to pick up the key from Dr. Jonson. He was distracted and didn’t even ask her what she needed it for. Evelyn was thankful she didn’t have to try to explain the situation with Clem to him. Checking that the key worked, and that there was no way to unlatch the deadbolt from the inside, Evelyn marveled at how perfect the room actually was. Not only was it in its own little alcove hallway that no one had reason to go into, but the ceiling was high and the single light bulb was way up in one corner and covered by a metal cage, piquing her curiosity as to what the original purpose of the room had been before it was a janitor’s closet. The only thing left in the room now was a large utilitarian sink that seemed old and stolid enough that even an enraged werewolf wouldn’t be able to do too much damage to it, but there was also a drain in the floor in case he did.

The only trouble that Evelyn encountered was where to conceal the camera in such a bare room, but she didn’t even have the camera yet, so she locked the room back up and consulted her phone for directions to a local spy shop. She had heard about such places and had driven by them on occasion, but had never been inside one before. Entering the store, Evelyn was amazed by the wide selection of items that she thought were only movie fantasies, like voice-recording fake eyeglasses and video pens. The overzealous clerk with thick glasses magnifying his pale grey eyes, thinning red hair, full beard, and twitchy manner smacked of a true conspiracy theorist. Coming out from behind the counter, he immediately assailed her with helpfulness.

“Anything in particular you’re looking for?”

Evelyn saw no reason not to be plain. “I need a small video camera.”

He motioned to the far wall. “Sure. We’ve got several models here. Are we talking something to fit in a purse or briefcase or smaller?”

“Ah, smaller I think.”

The clerk turned from the wall to look at her. “Smaller ones are going to be wireless and have a receiver, but the receiver has to be within two-hundred feet. That going to be a problem?”

“No.”

He turned back to the wall. “Got a few of the wireless here in stock, but none of them are strong enough to transmit past a military jammer, you understand.”

Evelyn didn’t understand, but also didn’t need an explanation. “Right. Not an issue.”

Picking up a box with a two-hundred and ninety-nine dollar price tag, he pointed to the description on its side. “This one’s high quality, six-hour battery life when taking stills every two minutes, and only two inches by three inches by two inches. Best seller.” He pushed his glasses farther up his thin nose. “Now, do you need anything by way of concealment?”

Taking the box from the man, Evelyn looked at the actual-size picture on the front. She’d expected it to be tiny but glancing at the other boxes, the battery lives on smaller ones were only a few hours. She considered the bare room. “I guess I do.”

“Well, without getting too specific, what’s in the room? Any cabinets or vents? Will you have unsupervised access to the room?”

“Access yes, and there’s ah…a sink I guess.”

“Exposed pipes or inside cabinetry?”

“Exposed.”

The salesman’s ears perked up. “Perfect. Got just the thing.” He went into the back room of the store and returned with a length of PVC pipe wide enough to conceal the camera, with a hole drilled in it for the lens to look out, and grooves inside to slide the camera in and hold it in place. “Standard length between the basin of the sink and the trap. Sneaks right in place with some plumber’s putty or silicone bathroom caulk to secure it. It’s been my experience that unless people are specifically looking for cameras or bugs or have a plumbing problem, they rarely notice the extra pipe.”

Wondering what his experiences were, Evelyn took the camera, and the fake pipe to conceal it, up to the counter. “Sounds good.”

Smiling, the clerk punched prices into the cash register. “We’re also running a special on bugged ballpoint pens and the night vision goggles today.”

“No thanks.”

*

Swinging by a Meijer on the way back to the lab, Evelyn picked up a tube of clear silicone bathroom caulk and a cheap stuffed panda, then headed back to the lab to install the camera in the janitor’s closet and the receiver in the lab. Fortunately, it was around lunchtime, so no students were in the lab to watch Evelyn as she climbed up on a lab bench and perched the recording device on top of one of the fume hoods behind the ventilation duct. After she clicked the power on, she jumped back down and confirmed that it was invisible from the floor. Supposedly both the camera and recorder that turned it on had six hours of battery life, but she didn’t fully trust that, so she climbed back on the bench and switched it off again.

Next she asked Dr. Jonson to e-mail his students and tell them that the lab would be off limits for the next two nights—from six in the evening until ten ‘o’clock the next morning—due to some delicate work that needed to be done by the nighttime lab-share researchers. Evelyn also made up a sign for the door of the lab. She knew that it was short notice and that it was risky, but even if the students couldn’t get into the janitor’s closet, she couldn’t risk them hearing anything unusual either and possibly calling campus security.

Having set up Clem’s containment chamber, Evelyn returned to the condo, had a late lunch, visited with Clem a bit, and then crashed in her bed to nap for a few hours, since tonight would be the last night they would be able to work in the lab before the fight with the Vulke. Evelyn figured that they could wrap up some things in the lab and then cut out early and she could talk to Kim about how to control herself during the next full moon cycle which was starting the next night. She was physically exhausted, nervous about Clem, worried about Kim, and overall in a mild panic about what might happen during the fight with the Vulke in four nights. Tossing and turning she tried to tell herself that things could be much worse and that she needed to keep a positive attitude if they were going to defeat the Vulke, but she was having trouble coming up with ways that things could actually be worse.