Thirteen (Otherworld 13)

"What happened?" Sean said.

"He began, uh . . ."

"Changing," I said. "Into a wolf."

"Not exact--" He cleared his throat again. "Mr. Danvers has witnessed only one initial transformation of a bitten werewolf, and that's hardly a sample large enough for generalization--"

"It wasn't a normal Change," I said. "Something's wrong."

"I--I believe you should speak to Mr. Cortez about this. And to Mr. Danvers, who should still be available--"

"He is," said a voice from the doorway. Jeremy stepped in. "I heard you were back. I need to speak to you both about Bryce."

The doctor got out of there as fast as he could. Jeremy told us that Bryce had woken and started what looked like a partial Change. That was normal. As were the screams of agony that went with it, though Jeremy downplayed those for Sean's sake. Bryce had been fevered to the point of delirium, also normal from Jeremy's experience with Elena. What concerned him was the rate at which the Change came on.

"It's happening faster than I saw with Elena," he said. "It appears to be a mutated form of werewolf, as well. More similar to the Shifters the Pack encountered in Alaska."

The Shifters were a small group of what appeared to be an evolutionary precursor to modern werewolves. Jeremy and the others Changed into wolves--real wolves. Those guys had been closer to the beastlike Hollywood wolfman.

"We were concerned about the damage the Change might be doing to his body," Jeremy said. "I had them administer a sedative. It was then that he was able to tell us what he knew about Larsen Dahl."

"So the moment he recovers from nearly changing into a wolfman, Benicio grills him about that?" I said.

Jeremy gave me a look. "I would not have allowed that, Savannah. Bryce offered the information. He didn't seem to realize he'd started to Change."

"Is that normal?"

"No. But none of this is normal."

My cell phone bleeped that I had a message. Jeremy's buzzed at the same time.

I checked mine, then looked at him. "Benicio?"

Jeremy nodded.

"He wants me to come up as soon as we're done here, so I can debrief them and be debriefed." I glanced at Sean. "He'd like you to join us, if you can."

"I'll come."

TWENTY-EIGHT

Paige met us heading into the meeting and gave me a rundown on everyone's whereabouts. Lucas was still in L.A., of course, with Adam, Clay and Elena. He'd be joining us by phone when he could. Aaron and Cassandra were dealing with trouble in Washington, where some moron had tried to expose a vampire. Jaime was here, but waiting for my parents to contact her, and wouldn't be joining us. Hope was present, with Karl, who was worried sick, probably because Hope was still having disturbing visions while heavily pregnant. There were also assorted Cabal executives on hand. When I walked in, though, I noticed one conspicuous absence.

"Where's Carlos?" I whispered.

"Putting out fires in New York," Paige whispered back as we found seats.

"Really?"

"Benicio suggested it. Carlos's men agreed. They're convinced this is his opportunity to show his leadership skills."

"What leadership skills?"

"Exactly. But they went along to prop up their straw man, and Benicio says together they're competent enough." She pulled out her chair. "So Carlos is out of everyone's hair and may actually be doing something useful."

That was one potential problem resolved. At the meeting, though, I realized it was only a drop in the bucket.

I thought I knew how bad things were getting. But I'd only seen what was right in front of me, a narrow slice of the chaos rolling over the supernatural world.