CHAPTER 21

Whatever Josie had meant to say, Eli missed it. He simply couldn’t hear it over a shrill yeowl of feline rage, combined with Rick’s blasphemous curse, blended in an earsplitting cacophony of confusion and pain.

He whirled around and saw his friend staggering under the weight of the good-size western bobcat that had launched itself at Rick’s head from just beyond the tree line. It took a second for his eyes to convince his brain that they weren’t playing a trick on him. Bobcats were usually small, shy things that stayed away from people at all costs. While a lion might attack a person if it felt threatened, had cubs to protect, or even if it got hungry enough, a bobcat faced with a human would just turn tail and run.

Then a puff of air brought Eli the scent of the animal and things became horribly clear. That might look like a bobcat, but it smelled more like a Bob in cat’s clothing. Somehow the virus that they’d all assumed affected only Lupines had found a way to spread to Felines.

This was all kinds of bad.

Instinct kicked in while Eli’s mind continued to work through the problem, and he jumped to Rick’s aid, grabbing the bobcat by the back of the neck and wrenching it from the Lupine’s back. The animal snarled in fury and turned on him so quickly, Eli had three long scratches on his left cheek even before he managed to release his grip on the creature’s scruff.

The bobcat hit the ground hissing and spitting, but it didn’t stay on the ground for long. Ignoring Eli, it turned again on Rick, but this time the Lupine was ready. He blocked the animal’s second attack with a swift kick that knocked it back several feet until it landed at the base of a false cedar.

“The damn thing just doesn’t know when to stay down,” Rick shouted when the bobcat twisted immediately to its feet, shook off the fall, and crouched in preparation for another leap.

Eli shook his head, the Feline’s ferocity sending a chill down his spine. It was like watching one of those horror movies where the villain turned out to be a child-size doll possessed by the soul of a serial killer. On the one hand, the idea of being attacked and killed by something less than half the size of a grown man made any sane person want to laugh; but on the other, when the thing just kept coming and coming and coming, ignoring every setback, every injury, just relentlessly attacking again and again, each time with a renewed sense of fury and agression... Well, it was hard not to feel a little sense of anxiety. Determination and a sharp set of teeth had won smaller victories in the history of man versus nature.

What truly disturbed Eli, though, wasn’t the animal’s viciousness or its unwavering focus on Rick; it was the bright, avid gleam of madness behind the narrowed yellow eyes. Somewhere inside that body was the mind of a man who was probably perfectly nice. Before he’d turned into a frenzied monster, Bob the bobcat had probably paid his taxes, mowed his lawn, held doors for little old ladies, and loved his wife and kids. Someone, somewhere, would probably cry if they could see how that man had been changed by one single prick of a needle, or one bite from a strange, frenzied wolfish-looking creature with eyes that had once been human.

In the end, the eyes told Eli what to do. He saw in those eyes the same thing he’d seen in Bill’s, right before the end—rage, bloodlust, and a complete absence of any sense of humanity. The men they had once been had died at the hands of the beast, and there would be no coming back from that brink. There was no tomorrow for a creature who had lost its place in the world.

Reluctantly, grimly, but efficiently, Eli drew his service revolver from the holster at his waist, took aim, and shot the bobcat once in the back of its head as it sailed through the air toward Rick one last time.

It fell to the ground with a sick thud, a limp, thick-furred casualty in a war it probably didn’t even know had been waged. The need for it left a bitter taste in Eli’s mouth, and he shoved the gun back into its leather holder with a grimace of distaste.

“What the fuck just happened here, compadre?” Rick asked, in a voice of utter astonishment. “Please tell me that I have not seen what I think I’ve seen.”

“The rules have changed.” Eli glared at the bobcat’s corpse, then picked it up and tossed it over his shoulder. “It looks like your pack members are no longer the only ones under attack, my friend. And I, for one, think it’s time we revised the game plan.”

With that, he turned and began to stalk through the woods to the west, in the direction of his cabin. They had parked there and hiked to the spot where Jackson had reported being shot. At the moment, Eli just wanted to get to the Jeep and get back to Josie as quickly as possible. He had to let her know what was going on.

“Oh, shit!” he snarled. Josie. He had cut off their phone call when the bobcat had attacked. The last thing she’d heard on her end of the line had probably been Rick’s scream, the Feline’s cry, and his curse. She’d be half crazy by now.

At least, she would be if she felt about him the way he hoped she did.

“Here. Take this. I think we’ve both been exposed to whatever we’re going to be exposed to by now.” He thrust the cat into Rick’s hands and dug out his cell phone again. “I need to call Josie back.”

“Wait!” Rick grunted and shifted his grip on the limp carcass. “Why the hell are we bringing this thing out with us? As far as I’m concerned, it can stay in the woods and rot.”

“Because Josie and Steve might be able to get something useful out of it,” he snapped, dialing with his thumb. “At least it will back us up when they hear about it attacking.”

The phone picked up before the first ring.

“Eli?” Josie demanded, sounding fantic. “Are you all right? What happened? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” he rushed to assure her. He hated having worried her, but he couldn’t help the little thrill that ran through him when he heard the terror in her voice. “We had a little incident, but it’s not a big deal. Rick and I are both okay.”

“Then what was that horrible noise I heard before the phone went dead?”

He hesitated, but there was no way to avoid telling her. She would know soon enough, and better that she be prepared.

“Rick was attacked,” he said carefully. “By a bobcat. Actually, it was a bobcat shifter. And, Josie, I’m pretty sure it was infected.”

“The bobcat? I’d say that’s a sure bet. Otherwise what would it be doing attacking a full-grown man.”

“You don’t sound surprised,” Eli said, knowing he did. “Did you hear me? I just told you that the virus has spread to Felines. It’s not only contagious to Lupine shifters anymore.”

“I know,” she answered impatiently. “That’s what I was trying to tell you when the phone went dead. Steve and I identified the drug in the syringe our attacker carried the other night. It was the LV-7 virus, but a new strain. Maybe we should call it LV-8 now? Anyway, it’s a long story, but basically we think that one of the scientists who originally developed the virus to attack Lupines secretly modified a strain of it to infect Felines as well, and he passed both of them on to whoever gave it to Rosemary.”

“Shit.”

“Precisely. Steve has ideas about who’s behind all this, too, but we can talk about that when you get back. You are on your way back here, aren’t you?”

Eli stalked up to his Jeep and popped open the rear hatch, slamming it back down as soon as Rick had the bobcat stored safely inside.

“We’re leaving now,” he told her, “and I’m putting on the lights. We’ll see you in ten minutes.”

The two men slid into the car, and Eli flipped on the sirens as well as the emergency lights. He could tell Josie and Steve that they had already discovered who was behind this fiasco when they got back to the clinic. Right now, the important thing was getting there before anything more could go wrong.

Josie took one look at Eli’s face and turned the color of hotel linens.

“Oh, my God,” she breathed, lifting a hand to touch the scratches. “Were you bit? Please tell me you weren’t bit, Eli.”

He pulled her to him and kissed her fiercely. “I wasn’t bit. I promise. There was absolutely no exchange of bodily fluids. I’m not infected.”

Josie shook her head, her lips pressed together in a thin line. “You can’t know that for sure. We barely know anything about this virus. We don’t know that the skin cells cats shed every time they scratch something don’t contain copies of the virus that are at this very moment already coursing through your bloodstream!”

“Come on, Colonel, tell her.” Eli turned to Steve with a pleading look. “The virus can only be transmitted through the exchange of bodily fluids or through direct administration with a needle. Isn’t that what you told us? I can’t get it from a couple of little scratches.”

“It’s highly unlikely,” the other man agreed, but Josie could see the shadow of uncertainty in his eyes. “The cells that shed off a cat’s nails are from dead tissue. Even if the infected animal left copies of the virus in the scratch wounds, chances are they’re dead as well. Still, you should probably clean those right away. Just to be safe.”

Her heart in her throat, Josie stomped off to get yet more saline and gauze as well as Betadine solution and plain strong soap. By the time she got done with those scratches, there wouldn’t be a germ within three counties hardy enough to survive in them. She’d make sure of it.

Because she didn’t know what she would do if anything happened to Eli.

“Do you want to check the bobcat’s claws and see?” Josie heard Rick ask the scientist. “Eli decided we should bring it back with us in case you or Dr. J needed to take a look at it.”

“Absolutely!” Steve replied with an enthusiasm that Josie found slightly distasteful. “It’s an amazing opportunity to get to see exactly what happens to the body as the virus runs its course. From what Josie tells me of patient zero, there really wasn’t enough left of her to do that kind of study.”

Slamming the bottle of wound cleanser down on the exam table, Josie gnashed her teeth and tore open a package of gauze with excessive force.

“Her name isn’t ‘patient zero,’ Colonel,” she bit out. “It’s Rosemary, and she’s more than a biology class fetal pig, you know. So is that bobcat out there. They deserve not to be talked about like pieces of meat or lab room slides.”

Eli flinched under her hand. Instantly, Josie eased the pressure with which she was scrubbing out his wounds.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, though the apology made her feel no better. At this point, she wasn’t sure if anything could make her feel better.

“Sweetheart, I’m okay.” Grabbing her free hand, Eli raised it to his lips, pressing them gently against the center of her palm. “Really.”

Josie curled her fingers against the warmth of his kiss and let out a long, shaky breath. “Right. I’m sorry. Again.”

“No, I’m the one who should apologize,” Steve said. “You’re right. We should all be respectful of the dead, even the doctors and researchers who learn from their misfortunes.”

She waved away his apology and felt color rush to her cheeks. “True, but I’m acting like an idiot. You haven’t said or done anything wrong. Taking a look at the bobcat will certainly give us some incredibly useful information about how the virus changes the host, and personally I think the brain deserves a good, close look. But at the moment, I’m less worried about understanding the actions of the infection than I am about stopping it from spreading, and that means we need to find the people responsible for infecting shifters and stop them.”

“Eli and I think we know the answer to that,” Rick said, pulling out the scrap from The Loyalist and handing it to her. “We found this at the shooter’s campsite. It’s from a newsletter published by an organization called the Nation of Aryan Humans. It’s a group of yahoos who advocate the cause of—”

“Human supremacy,” Josie finished. She glanced down at the paper with distaste. “Steve and I already discussed the possibility, or rather the likelihood, that a human power group might be behind this. It turns out that one of the developers of the original LV-7 virus had ties to one of these organizations.”

“This exact one, as it happens,” Steve cut in, his eyes narrowing. “How’s that for a coincidence?”

“I highly doubt that it’s anything of the kind.” Eli nodded to the Lupine Alpha. “I think that the combination of what Steve has been able to tell us and what Rick and I uncovered clinches it. The NAH are behind this. The question now is: Who’s behind the NAH, and where can we find him?”

“I was about to make a call and ask one of my packmates if he knows who’s currently running the group when the bobcat attacked,” Rick said. “Ever since some of our males volunteered to help with crowd control and law enforcement during the anti-Other riots last year, a couple of them have turned into real experts on the subject of the human supremacy movement. My beta in particular makes it a priority of his to keep track of these bastards. He says that it’s a matter of ‘keeping his enemy closer.’ They know who we are, so we need to know who they are.”

“Your beta is right,” Steve agreed. “Every intelligence agent in this country knows that the only way to prevent a terrorist attack is to take down the cell leaders. You can go after the soldiers from now until eternity and not make an ounce of difference because for every one you catch, three more are ready to take his place. But very few people in this world have what it takes to mastermind a real terror plot. Thank God.”

“So is that what we’re going to do?” Josie asked. “We find out who the leader of the NAH is and... and what? Take him down? Take him out? Kill him? What?”

“Josephine Barrett, I am shocked at you!” Rick teased. “Don’t you know that murder is both immoral and illegal?”

“But arresting a suspected biological terrorist isn’t.” Steve looked over at Eli. “Do you know of anyone with the powers of arrest, by any chance?”

Josie frowned. “Wouldn’t that depend on where the leader was when we found him? I mean, if he’s in Nebraska or someplace like that, there would be jurisdictional issues, right?”

“Possibly, but I’m pretty sure that I’ve heard the NAH was forced to relocate its headquarters from Idaho to somewhere in our vicinity within the last couple of years,” Rick said. “Either northwest Oregon or southwest Washington.”

Eli’s jaw tightened, his eyes fixed on Josie. “Let’s all hope it turns out to be the former. Rick, I think you should go ahead and try making that call again. Steve, if you’ll excuse us for a minute, there’s something I’d like to talk to Josie about.”

He took her by the elbow, and she could tell just from the feel of his grip what he wanted to discuss, so she dug her heels into the floor and flatly refused to budge.

“If you mean that you want to drag me away and yell at me for thinking that I should be a part of this plan to catch the bad guys, don’t waste your breath,” she told him. “I’ve been in the middle of this mess from the beginning, and I intend to stay in the middle of it until it stops being so messy. A lecture from you is not going to change that. These are my patients. I can’t just step aside and not do everything in my power to help them.”

His eyes narrowed to slits of glittering green, and his lips nearly disappeared altogether. In her peripheral vision, she could see Steve watching them in rapt fascination.

“I don’t give lectures,” Eli snarled, “but if I did, I can’t think of anyone in the world who deserves one more than you. Have we not already discussed the fact that I am not willing to see you put yourself in danger?”

“You know we have. Which is why I see no reason to repeat the experience.”

“This is not a joke, Josephine. This is serious, and this is not the time to argue with me. What we are planning to do not only is dangerous, but might be foolhardy. You can’t expect me to stand by while you place yourself in a situation where you might very well be injured or killed. I won’t do it.”

“And I won’t stand by while you put yourself in that same situation. Don’t be such a bloody hypocrite!”

“This isn’t being hypocritical; it’s being logical. There’s a very big difference between me going into a situation where people on both sides will be armed, suspicious, and more than willing to shoot anything that moves. I’ve been trained to do that, it’s my job to do that, and I’ve been doing it for fifteen years.”

She immediately saw his point, and deliberately paused to draw in a deep breath. “Okay, I understand that. I understand why you’re worried about the idea of me putting myself in danger. I’m worried about you doing the same thing. But I’m not trying to horn in on your manly fun just for shits and giggles. I think it’s important for me to be there when you find the people responsible for this fiasco. Especially if one of them is a scientist. I know you care about me, but you care about your friends, too, and you’re not objecting to Rick and Steve going along.”

“First, Rick is Lupine, which means he’s at least four times stronger than the average homicidal skinhead and about ten times stronger than you,” Eli bit out. “And second, Steve is a colonel in the US Air Force. He didn’t earn that rank by crocheting doilies. He got it through combat training, firearms training, and training in strategy and tactics. He’s seen real combat and lived to tell about it. And third—”

“What’s third?”

She could almost hear Eli’s teeth grinding together. “Third is... third.”

“I’m glad to have it cleared up,” Steve muttered.

Rick looked around, his cell phone still pressed to his ear, and rolled his eyes, mouthing, “Thank God,” to the room at large.

Josie ignored them both, and luckily Eli didn’t seem to notice them. Otherwise, she’d have been breaking up a fight before she managed to pry another word from her man’s tight-lipped mouth.

“Third,” he finally gritted out between clenched teeth, “is that if you think my feelings for you and my feelings for them have even the slightest thing in common, we’re going to have a very long and very athletic conversation just as soon as this whole thing is over with.”

Josie fought valiantly against the urge to roll her eyes. “We’ve already talked about the fact that I can no more stand by while you put yourself in deliberate danger than you can do it with me. We love each other. That’s how that’s supposed to work, and since neither one of us seems likely to change our minds about that, we need to just move on to the real problem instead of continuing with a never-ending argument.”

“See, that’s the difference between you and me,” Eli said, glowering at her, “because I’d be happy to keep arguing if it meant that your life would last for more than the next twenty-four hours. I want to keep you around for as long as possible, even if I have to listen to you spouting nonsense the whole time!”

Through the rushing hiss of fury pounding in her ears, Josie heard the sharp intake of Steve’s breath. She also saw him take a reflexive step backward as his eyes darted to the exits.

“And I think that’s my cue to leave,” Steve said. “I, uh, I need to... go... somewhere else. Right now.”

He suited actions to words, Rick following hot on his heels.

Josie took a very deep breath and counted to ten. “Eli, I know that you don’t want to see me in danger. Trust me, I don’t want to see myself in danger, but I’m not insisting that I go along because I’m looking for a cheap thrill. These people developed a virus that’s killed or killing my patients. I took an oath to try to save them. I need to save them. And the best chance for me to do that is to go with you and collect whatever notes and samples and dust rags I can find that might have a bearing on these cases. You and Rick might be trained fighters, but you’re not doctors. I am.”

“So is Steve. He can gather whatever you think you’ll need and bring it back here with him.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so you’re not going to need Steve to do anything more suited to his other military skills? Like fighting or shooting or sneaking around without being detected?”

Eli’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t answer.

“Look, I might not be Other and I might not have gone through basic training, but I grew up in this town and I learned how to shoot a rifle when I was ten years old. I learned to shoot a pistol when I was twelve. Am I a sniper? No, but I can defend myself if I need to. And when it comes to having a strong stomach, I’ve probably seen more blood and had my hands in more gore than you and your friends put together. I can handle myself in a crisis, because that is what I’ve been trained to do. I can promise you that I will not be a liability.”

He opened his mouth, and she held up a hand to stop him. At the moment, she had no interest in hearing from him.

“You can worry about me all you please, because I can guarantee that I will be worrying about you just as hard. You can forbid me from going with you. You can even tie me up and lock me in a room if you feel you have to do that, but I can guarantee you that I will find a way out, and when I do, I will come after you, because I couldn’t live with myself if I stayed behind and that cost my patients or my friends or my neighbors their lives.”

Her expression serious, she reached out and took one of his big hands in both of hers, feeling the tension coiled in the fine muscles there. “I know that there’s no way you’re going to be happy about me tagging along, and I’m sorry that I’m going to be causing you worry, but if it helps, I’ll make you some very sincere promises right now.”

Her brown eyes met his green ones and held steady. “I promise that from the moment we step out of this clinic, I will follow any order you give me, because I’m smart enough to know that the strategy devised by a trained law enforcement professional and a military colonel is probably better than what I could come up with on my own. I promise that if you say run, I will run, and if you say hide, I will hide. I promise that I won’t take any chances that I don’t feel are absolutely necessary, and I promise that I’ll think with my head and not my heart.”

She saw the muscles in his throat work as he swallowed, then she saw his expression soften as he leaned down to press his forehead to hers. “Do you promise me that you absolutely will not get hurt?”

Lips curving, Josie reached up and pressed her mouth to his. “I promise. Do you?”

“Anything you want, Josie. Forever.”

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