Codex Born

“What’s wrong?” Lena asked.

I swallowed to keep from throwing up. In my mind, I was back in the woods, standing over the broken body of the murdered wendigo. My throat felt like it had turned to stone.

Lena touched my arm. “Isaac?”

“He wanted their skins,” I whispered. “That’s why August had to butcher them while they were alive. Wendigos revert to human form when they die, and he needed the monster. He wanted to take their power. Their strength.”

“How do you know?” asked Lena.

“Because I wrote the paper explaining how to do it.”

They were all staring at me. “Explain,” Jeff snarled.

Eight years ago, I had never met a nonhuman. Ray had told me stories of vampires and werewolves, but they weren’t real. Not yet. “This was when I first started training with Ray Walker down in East Lansing. We were talking about the nature of magical creatures.”

I had come dangerously close to failing out of my first semester at MSU. I hadn’t cared about my introductory courses. Why waste my time in a lecture hall when I could be studying magic? My textbooks sat unopened while I tore through magical theory and history. I skipped labwork in order to practice using my own powers.

“Libriomancy is an extrinsic magic. I use books to pull magic into myself before I can manipulate that magic. Werewolves and vampires use intrinsic magic. Your bodies use that energy automatically. You can’t control the process any more than I can consciously manufacture white blood cells. We’ve known for centuries that intrinsic and extrinsic magic couldn’t exist in the same person. It’s why Deb lost her libriomancy when she changed.”

“Get to the point,” Deb said.

“Back in the 1920s, a group of Porters were searching for a way to use intrinsic magic without losing their other abilities. They…they started by investigating werewolves.”

Jeff’s lips pulled back, and his hackles were up again.

“Werewolves show up in folktales throughout the world,” I said. “Armenian stories talk of God punishing women by wrapping them in cursed wolf pelts. The women are human during the day, but monsters at night, murdering and feasting on their loved ones. Other cultures tell of skin-walkers, humans who take on the power of wolves and other beasts by donning their fur. The Ulfhednar of Norway dressed in wolfskins and were said to be all but unstoppable. Countless fairy tales talk of enchanted belts that transform the unsuspecting into monsters.”

I was stalling, presenting background information instead of jumping to the heart of my confession. Nidhi knew it, too. I could tell from the crease between her eyebrows.

“They experimented to see if werewolf skins retained their magic, and if that intrinsic magic from…from freshly harvested samples…could be transferred to human beings.”

Jeff lunged at me, but Lena moved just as fast. She kicked him in the side, and his jaws clacked shut, missing me by inches. Jeff’s claws scraped the floor, but before he could recover, Lena was kneeling on his neck. She clutched her bokken in both hands, holding it like a quarterstaff, and ready to strike with either end.

“Their work wasn’t sanctioned,” I said. “When Gutenberg found out, he put an end to it.” The researchers had been transferred to other regions. A slap on the wrist, considering what they had done.

“What did you do?” Jeff growled.

“Their experiments failed. The skins didn’t preserve the magic long enough to be useful.” When I read their papers eight years ago, I hadn’t thought about werewolves. I had been too busy thinking about the possibilities. What if infusing people with magic could be as easy as applying a nicotine patch?

“You thought wendigo skins might work better,” Lena said.

“Their results suggested a process of rapid magical and biological decay,” I said miserably. “I thought the cold might slow or even stop that process.”

Jeff had stopped struggling, but his ears were flat against his head.

“The Porters have…samples…from various species,” I said. “I requisitioned—Ray helped me to order a patch of wendigo hide. About two square inches, packed in dry ice. We used rats from the pet store, shaving their fur and applying a tiny square. Two didn’t respond at all, but the third showed increased strength and hostility. The changes lasted for several days.”

“How do you collect these samples?” Jeff snarled.

“When a werewolf goes feral, the pack hunts him or her down. Other magical creatures aren’t as self- regulating, so the Porters have to get involved.” I stared through the window. “The bodies are brought back for study and disposal.”

“You said wendigos revert to human form when they die,” Lena said.

“I know.” I couldn’t look at her. “I suspect they put the wendigo into some kind of stasis. It wouldn’t have felt anything.”

It had all been so logical eight years ago. Only a handful of intrinsically magical creatures were sentient. Most were closer to animals. The more we could learn, the better we’d be able to manage them, even protect them when necessary.

How much of our work had August Harrison been able to access? He must have found Victor’s notes, and he had obviously discovered my research papers. Had he been searching specifically for ways to gain power, or had he stumbled onto my reports by accident?

“Did you or anyone else proceed to human trials with wendigo skins?” Nidhi asked. Both her words and her expression were professionally neutral.

“Not that I know of.” The vampires appeared nonplussed by my revelations, but then, I wasn’t telling them anything they didn’t know. Deb might not have been familiar with every one of my projects, but she knew the Porters’ research practices, just as she knew our history was stained by those who occasionally traded ethics for results. No doubt she had shared everything with her new masters.

“Beat yourself up later,” Lena snapped. “Jeff, I’m going to let you up now. I’d thank you to not rip out my lover’s throat. Whatever those Porters did, they died years ago. Should I kill you because some other werewolf murdered innocent people a hundred years ago?”

She eased back, and Jeff clambered to his feet. His fur hadn’t flattened back out, but he didn’t try to kill me.

Lena turned to Nicholas. “Ask Victor if there’s another way to stop his creations. A self-destruct phrase, a backup queen, anything.”

Nicholas chuckled as he relayed Lena’s question. “Destroy the queen, and her death might spread through her children.”

Which would be perfect, if we had the queen. “Is there a way to duplicate her song?”

“Not by you. Victor took great care to make sure his creations could not be ‘hacked.’” Nicholas frowned at that last word, making me wonder how long he had been locked away from the world. “He believed that if anything were to happen to his queen, he would simply make another.”

“Can he tell us how?” I asked.

A sudden flare of heat seared my thigh. Banners of flame rippled from Smudge’s back as he darted to and fro in his cage. Lena caught my eyes and gestured to the door. I checked the hallway while Lena moved toward the bedroom window.

The window cracked as if struck by a stone, and Lena jumped back.

“Ah,” said Nicholas. “The ghosts have found us at last, and they’ve brought Victor’s children home.”

I yanked out my shock-gun. “What ghosts?”

Two metal wasps were attacking the window, while another trio clung to the screen. I crossed the room, held the barrel of my gun six inches from the glass, and pulled the trigger.

I liked to tell myself I had chosen the shock-gun to practice with because it was a practical, multi-purpose weapon. At its highest setting, it could take down a zombified elephant, and at its lowest it would knock a human unconscious with no long-term damage. Nor would it draw undue attention, being designed to mimic an ordinary twenty-first-century handgun.

Those were all good and valid reasons, but the truth was, I picked this one because I got to shoot evil with lightning bolts.