Pawn Among Wolves Ch. 16

The more recent areas were obvious from the concrete structures and plastic studding: the dungeons, morgue, new laboratory, stores, offices, studios, arena and auditorium, and the plush reception area for the well-heeled clientele. Most recent was the swimming pool adjacent to the garages, where the human slaves were exercised daily to keep their attractive figures.

All of the labyrinth, both old and new areas, was well served with high-quality ducting for ventilation. Narrow rectangular tunnels which, if you were small enough, and good at carving bypasses around fans, could serve as a hidden travel network.

The only place down here that Gemma hadn't even seen was the block of maximum security cells, buried in a second layer below the central corridor. The sole lift down was pass activated, and the spiral emergency staircase riddled with sensors. The one time she had tried to penetrate down there was the closest she had come to being recaptured; there had been both motion and scent sensors even within the air ducts - programmed to identify both wolf and human scent. Luckily she had been scent masked, her human scent weak and wolf scent undetectable, so the signal that had triggered the alarm had been borderline. After a desultory check, the over-confident guards had decided that the alarm had just been tripped by a rat or something.

Despite not being able to get down there, Gemma had found out who was kept in those cells, or at least one of the captives. Her human friend Helen had been drafted to clean up the nauseating signs of systematic abuse mottling the skin of a new inmate who had been brought here by Nicolas Grey just before the Halloween show and taken downstairs immediately.

That show had starred Gemma; it hadn't gone exactly as Grey had intended.

The girl Helen had treated had had a mop of startling platinum-blonde hair, and high, Slavic cheekbones. And after Gemma's 'death' Opal had overheard the Louse, in her fury at his killing her bait for the Mackeld, refusing to return Grey his toy when he had left. Natasha Vanilchov was still down in the high security cells. And Nick was not here, torturing her.

So they would be able to kill him! Damn, if only Mac knew!

Mac. Gemma's heart creased around the draining, relentless emptiness, mind reaching blindly for the solace to fill that vacuum. The longing surged through her - but she couldn't think of him. Not and function. She had to hold back yet. But Gemma couldn't repress her silent prayer, just praying that he still was. Praying that he would wait. Yet for what? For what would he be waiting? As he felt dead to her, so she would feel dead to him. Maybe her Mac was no longer out there, no longer there to return to: her home, her songmate? She couldn't tell.

Stop it, snapped Alan harshly, his conveyance slapping at her. You cannot indulge that pain tonight. He would not wish you to.

Gemma hauled her equilibrium straight, annoyed at herself for deserving that rebuke. She must be more unsettled by the uncertainties ahead than she knew, it was a long time since she had unintentionally succumbed to the dragging doubt. That was a raw, frozen wound that she couldn't touch, or it would freeze her also. She couldn't.

He would not wish her to.

That was true, as her second knew: Alan knew Mac. Years ago, Alan had lost his temper once too often and had admitted himself to the Aster Centre for Anger Management at Himlesky, when the Macs had been among the Alpha-lin, the alpha trainees learning to expand their self-control to help the volatile wolf patients with their own anger.

Sadly, despite what he had learned there, Alan's anger had always remained a little too close to the surface, and years later he had come to Faulk medical centre in search of further help.

He had found it.

Although this help left anger strangled in Gemma's throat: Alan no longer had free will. He had agreed to take part in the experimental anger management trial, as had most of the older wolves incarcerated here, and so had volunteered for the first administration of the drug.

He had never been offered a choice since.

Until now, his voice suddenly grated in her mind. Will you fucking stop lying there reminiscing and get a move on, my titchy little Alfamme? I don't want to waste the only free evening I've had in months.

The guards and clients never let up on him - it was Alan's own morbid joke that the reason the Faulk no longer kept him down in the maximum security basement cells was because he was so popular - the guards had grown tired of having to go through all the damn extra rigmarole to escort him up to the dungeons every single time he was purchased for an hour or two.

In truth, he had been too battered, too abused, to care any longer: to even try to escape. But his Alpha training had been a godsend for her, for all of them - she knew she wouldn't have got this far, wouldn't have gotten them this far without him.

You'd have managed, Alan snorted gruffly.

I thought you said I'd have been crashed out by the first reasonably powerful guard I meandered across if you hadn't taught me to hide my shouty shields?

He'd actually been a lot more scathing than that.

The first day when she had crept along the metal vent above Alan's cell, she had suddenly been startled by a sharp blow on her mind shield, and a strange mind blasting into hers, taunting her as he had attacked. Alan was damn powerful; the Faulk guards had learned how dangerous it was to approach his cell between drug dosages, and were now meticulous about waiting for the control drug, replenished via the aerosol sprinklers in the ceiling, to take hold again before they came to get him. Gemma had gotten too close to Alan's cell.

Yet her gasp of pain had been echoed by a gasp of wonder from the small concrete box below, and the abrupt withdrawal of the painful rake of intrusion.

You survived? Alan's incredulous mind-voice had been strained, muffled by the clouds still stifling his mind - although the drug hadn't stopped him from breaking her defences. But Grey killed you for your beautiful, public humiliation of him.

Gemma hadn't been able to reply, her throat dry, head still ringing from that blow, the mental whiplash from her broken shields slashing like snapped elastics across the tender inside of her mind.

I would cleave to you, my Alfamme, had been the deafeningly startling follow-on comment, and Alan's mind had brushed hers again, like a reaching hand seeking a handclasp.

The words, the feel of the oath had shocked her into replying, despite the echoing pain.

What? NO! I'm not an Alfamme - don't be ridiculous. Shuddering even at that breath of touch, she'd pushed him away.

You are an Alfamme. Please. Your humiliation of Grey is a legend within this hell. And -

That wasn't me! That was my mate - my Alpha! OW her mind hurt. What had he done?

-now I find that despite your being silvered to death when subsequently almost managing to kill him - Opal was in the room too - you're slinking blithely through the halls, defying them further. Alan's mental tone had been both awed and smug.

I am A WEREWOLF!

I would cleave to you, Alan had insisted. Please, he'd added, reaching out again with that mental tendril.

She had pushed it away again, panicked, Will you just listen - I can barely control myself, never mind anyone else. No way.

Pl- damn, Alan had broken off. They had both been unaware of the hiss of the gas through the sprinklers inside his cell during their silent shouting match, but both had abruptly fallen silent at the tramp of several sets of heavy feet approaching. The footsteps had halted outside the door, and a key had sounded in the lock.

Keep your fucking shields tighter - I could sense you, Alan had snapped at her urgently, now having to struggle to convey even over the few feet between them as the waves of fog rose in his head.

Gemma had lain silent in the duct, tears on her cheeks when the guards had finally entered and hauled the powerful old wolf from the room. The Faulk wolves had been laughing, sneering, and just the mental images that their words had dredged up had been revolting, while she didn't have to - wasn't the one who would have to experience what they were so casually joking about.

But she couldn't accept that wolf. She'd only just been able to handle the Whites without going insane, with all of Mac's help.

She couldn't, she'd told herself.

Famous last words.

Well, if you hadn't still been crawling about waving those smug: look! you can't see what I'm thinking nyah nyah nyah, shields that your idiot mate let you taunt him with, I wouldn't have badgered you so much, Alan pointed out in annoyance. Her blatant shielding had really annoyed him, he had mentally shouted at her so much every time she had come within his range that she had had to learn to hide her shields to give her ringing head a rest.

Accepting him had somehow happened during those caustic lessons, and then her second had immediately started sorting out who of the other drugged slaves down here he thought she ought to accept too. It had been easier to accept them than to continue arguing, and something about the bond - once she had started, with Alan, it would have been impossible to deny the others what she had somehow given him.

Gemma hadn't been able to understand Alan's almost desperate exuberance when he had first conveyed to her. But then, she had spent most of her life alone in her head, and found the pack mind cloying. Most wolves, having lived with their families sharing thoughts and love since before they'd been born, found it echoingly, wrenchingly lonely. Unbearable.

That was partially why the control drug combo was so undeniable. The drug blocked normal conveyance at any distance beyond a few feet, killing the pack gensis, isolating each wolf and making him or her exceedingly vulnerable. Vulnerable to the single, commanding connection with the key holder, which it was almost impossible to withstand. Gemma couldn't block the instructions from the keys to her new wolf pack, couldn't stop the guards from drugging her wolves and manipulating them, but accepting them as hers loosened that hold and gave them a little corner to cling to. When Gemma was close enough her wolves could whisper with their packmates, sense them, buoyed by the gensis: true pack.

Aren't they there yet? Alan demanded impatiently.

You know the shift changes go haywire when there's a show on: just hold your horses, they'll let me in when it's safe, Gemma retorted.

Hold your horses, Alan repeated on a snort. Damn stupid thing to say to a wolf.

He really was a lot stronger tonight, and itchy with the desire to get moving. Gemma gave a little moue of distaste at the reason. Her lab-rat wolves had keyed a dose of the control drug to her, and she had managed to sneak it to Alan earlier this evening. The main ingredient was almost impossible to get hold of safely, they had to be very sparing, only use it in emergencies, so it was only Alan: most of her wolves she could only hear weakly, if at all.

And they wouldn't be able to get any more shampoo once her humans were gone. Shampoo contained the ingredient most carefully inventoried in the lab, every millilitre tallied so that the rebellious element among the lab-rat slaves couldn't siphon any away into their secret tests. This was the fourth batch her human friends had managed to smuggle in to her.

You really think they won't tell? Alan said brusquely.

Gemma closed her eyes and counted to ten. Then to twenty. This. Every day. Every fucking day. She had had enough of defending one race to the other - the wolves were never going to trust the humans in a thousand years, and the human slaves truly believed that the others were there simply as spies for their pimps.

Suddenly, her eyes sprang open as she heard the faint rustle of the grating beyond her feet being pushed up into the air vent. The faint scent of Ben reassured her and she heard the soft brush of metal against metal as her packmate carefully laid the metal grill in the ducting beyond the gap. Already she was arching on her hands and feet to crab herself backwards soundlessly over the hole, then she lowered herself onto her back, dropped her feet in, squirmed around in the cramped space and felt her hips grasped firmly, steadied as she was lifted down by the young wolf.

There was a pyramid of wolves underneath her; four sturdy hulks at the base, standing impassively shoulder to the shoulder with their backs to the wall while holding the ankles of the three they were supporting. Those three were steadying two more who were standing on their shoulders, and Ben was standing on the last two. A silent, skilful pack of defiant acrobats, who were currently out of sight of the guards in the spur off from the main lab.

Ben crouched swiftly, silently, swinging Gemma down to the two below him, who grasped an arm each and lowered her further, until within a blink she was placed gently on the concrete floor, the pyramid disintegrating seconds after her safe arrival to a chorus of silent greetings. Simone was already enveloping her in her labcoat while Jorgen pushed some safety glasses up her nose and disappeared around the corner by the furnace, following his already-departed packmates.

Gemma pulled on a pair of oven gloves and was just opening the door of the incubator, reaching in for the tray of samples she had left last night, when a pair of guards strolled into view in the main lab area, strutting their smug, menacing swagger.

One of the guards glanced indifferently across at the two silent lab-rats working back-to-back in the small annex lined with the ovens and sinks. Simone was scrubbing something out in the sink opposite, and Gemma was too accustomed by now to her daily excursions into the lab for fear to make her hand shake as she carefully laid her beakers on a tray and slid the gloves off, then picked out some lab gloves to pull on in place.

She carried the tray around the corner into the main lab, mind idly noting where the batters were tonight - the labyrinth slang for collaborators, as she crossed to a workbench far from the main doors where the guards usually stood. The batters' positions were passed to her through the weak, sluggish links with her pack, dotted around the huge room. They loved it when she joined them, all she heard was an irrelevant murmur of idle commentary, but they could communicate, the gensis whispering silently among them. The power they gave her rebounded to them, she was just a conduit, a focus.

The laboratory was vast - the central chamber large enough that it would have fitted five or six large juggernauts side by side down the room without brushing the walls or the heavy-duty lifting cranes suspended from the ceiling. The yellow-orange lights hanging below the crane hooks shone a harsh bleach into all corners of the room, although beyond the dozens of rows of grey worktops with their silent chemist-slaves, the green glow of the emergency exit sign above the double doors of the main entrance cast an additional, eerie light on the faces of the pair of guards standing below.

Another four were standing by the door to the store room, watching one of the laboratory rats emerging with a large bottle, then checking the contents as he stood waiting, pale face downcast. The pair of guards who had just come off duty said something provocative to the pair taking over, and all four laughed maliciously as the slave shivered helplessly. But the off-duty two turned and left by the adjacent side door with no further action; damaging the lab-rat slaves on a whim was forcefully discouraged by the Faulk.

The silence of the lab fell again, the only noise the monotonous rumble of the extractor fans, and the whirring and occasional electronic beep from a machine or workstation. Lab rats were not allowed to talk.

Gemma pulled the concoction she had prepared the previous night from the fridge, diluted it carefully with the incubated liquid, added the extra ingredients and then set the timer, forcing herself to work slowly, meticulously, despite the heavy thud of her heart.

She waited. But the anticipation of tonight was burning her blood too quickly through her veins, beginning to colour her scent, and so Gemma grabbed her latest antidote attempts from the fridge, trying to calm herself down by concentrating again on this exercise in futility. She began to pipette solvent into these latest test samples, preparing them for analysis, keeping her head down.

Fifteen minutes later, she stared at the results on her screen.

What?

This couldn't be right. The antidote attempt she had concocted yesterday was ridiculous, that test had really just been a joke - something to do while she had waited. Like tonight. The wereem checked a second time, a third, then got up, calling, Rupe, silently, and drifted over to the hand sink at the end of the bench to throw her gloves in the bin and scrub her fingers, trying to contain her jumping heart.

Ridiculous. Mac was not superwolf!

Rupert was the senior chemist here - he had been born down here, trained practically from birth to the position he now filled. Let him tell her how wrong she was.

Her brain kept jumping at the possibility - but why would that formula work? And just typical that, if it really did, she had no chance of making any more, stuck in here.

Aghast, she glanced down at her left wrist as she realised that she was twisting Mac's bracelet around, fidgeting feverishly with it while her mind raced. It was visible. Her horrified eyes flickered sideways to the wristlet of tiny glass cylinders on her right just as a shiver of fear crashed in over her and both bracelets abruptly disappeared, furring back with the light dusting of human hair on her skin.

Gemma's cheeks were burning red. Usually she had to fight her shields to get the damn things to appear, in any form. However sick, maimed or fighting-for-her-life she had been at times in here, she had never once, even in the rage apparently, allowed herself even the chance to lose Mac's bracelet. Andrea had laughed when she had first heard that Gemma could hardly ever get herself to not fur the thing, even in human form.

"That's how any cub learns," she had said. "Plait something they love into their fur, and they soon learn to fur it as they shift. When you aren't scared of losing it, it'll appear."

And apparently even seasoned adults had difficulty differentiating between left side and right when furring, although it was easier to select between materials. Gemma still couldn't fur clothing at all, but Mac's bracelet, in unison with the elasticated metal wristlet of tiny phials on her other wrist - that wasn't going anywhere.

When she had been able to get hold of the thing, the wristlet had been incredibly useful, as it held tubes containing the remains of a variety of the drugs that she had been working on back in the city. She had built much of her packs' freedom and their escape plans from it.

Now this new antidote, if the readings were right and then a physical test worked the same -. Her heart jumped again. No, she must have gone wrong somewhere, it was impossible.