“You’re dreaming,” Lorien laughed. “But give him the drug anyway.”
Maddox lifted Will's sleeping head in his hand and lifted the vial to his lips. The swallow reflex was strong enough to ensure that Will dutifully took the full contents of the vial without argument, a much easier task than it would have been if he was awake.
They watched, hushed as Will twitched in his trance sleep, waiting for the moment when his jaws would elongate, fresh canine teeth would replace his grinding teeth, and fur would flow from his skin. Seconds ticked by. Minutes followed. Then a full hour crept in. Will turned in his sleep a few times, but remained stubbornly human throughout.
“It does not appear to be working. Is it like an edible? Takes a couple of hours?”
“It is not like an edible. It’s just not working.” Maddox did not like hearing the tension in his voice. It wasn’t like him. It represented a loss of control, and he did not lose control. Not even when he was facing what he suddenly realized was his biggest disappointment in many hundreds of years.
“I thought he had wereblood.”
Maddox gritted his teeth. “He does.”
“He’s not turning.”
“No. He’s not.”
“Did you get him tested?”
“No.”
Lorien looked at Maddox. “Is it possible you’re wrong about him?”
“Anything is possible. But how could he be so naturally violent, so utterly without remorse, so impossible to control? He has all the traits.”
“Except he doesn’t have all the traits, does he? Not the furry ones. Not the teethy ones.”
“If he’s human… then…”
They looked at one another and shared a mutual shudder. A werewolf who did what Will did was natural, understandable. A vampire fledgling with his hunger for destruction was likewise relatable. But a human with those tastes, impulses, and instincts? That was nothing other than a monster.
“Let him sleep it off. He never believed he was a werewolf anyway. And don’t worry.”
Lorien stretched, yawned, even though he had absolutely no need whatsoever to yawn, and left the room. He’d lost interest, but it was not so easy for Mad.
Maddox was worried. Deeply so. He believed he knew everything about Will. Everything down to the date and time of his conception, his birth, and his abandonment. His passage through an adoptive home that surrendered him into state care at the age of six because he was impossible to control even then. He’d run away from foster care at ten and never returned to a home. Prison had been his only stable place of residence. These were the simple facts of the whelp’s history. They were all to have been redeemed by his transformation from man to wolf — but if he had no wolf inside him, then he was nothing besides a broken boy grown into a very dangerous man.
A human Maddox had already allowed himself to bond with. A human who would perhaps be damaged even beyond, beyond repair if he were to be cast aside.
Maddox watched Will sleep, and worried.
16
An Invitation
The next day, Will was still a human, and war was still raging in the streets of NYC. Maddox was beginning to think he might very well be forced to try to take the crown against his will, a prospect which did terrible things for his mood.
“Good news!” Lorien appeared with a gold-leafed card in his hand. “We’ve been issued an invitation. A summit of vampire lords over two thousand years old. It appears to be an attempt to select a new king and end the war. Promising, no?”
It was promising. It was also a little too orderly. After all this chaos, someone had invested in stationery?
“Who sent the missive?” Maddox held out his hand for the card.
“Doesn't say.”
“Where’s the meeting? At the Library?”
“No. It's in the old water pumping station. It’s large, it’s quiet, and it’s remote from human activity. It’s a good place. Are we going?”
“Absolutely.” Maddox did not intend to miss whatever that invitation was for. It was intriguing, and he had never been one to turn away from intrigue.
"Are you going to inform Candy and the crew?”
“I don’t think so. The last thing I need is my connection with human law enforcement distracting the proceedings. We’ll go tonight. And with any luck, we’ll fix this mess.”
The old water pumping station was a large concave enclosure which had once contained many thousands of gallons of water. It was dry now, empty with an incredible echo. Maddox, Lorien, and Will walked into the very center of it through a bunker style entrance.
“This feels like a trap,” Will muttered.
“Anything or anyone who tries to trap us is going to discover that they're the ones trapped with us,” Lorien replied.
Above them, stairs wound around to a big circular glass window at the very top. Light was flowing in from that point, moonlight casting a golden shadow across the floor, right where they ended up standing.