Chapter Five.

Graham fell into the motions. He felt a calm he’d not thought possible again, the calm of his hands on Feival, of simple touch and licking wounds. The actions grew from instinct, and when his brain finally blinked into gear he paused in shock.

It was not only that Feival’s body was ruined, not only that he’d squeezed both eyes tight. It was not Feival at all, but Graham, whose hands grasped skinny arms and bony hips, who had moments before laid Feival bare before him. The washrag landed at their feet, and Graham stared down at it. At his own thick boots and the dirty pile of cloth Feival had worn. Graham felt a wash of disappointment at himself, then frustration, then resentment.

He bent to retrieve the washcloth, pointedly turning his face from Feival's groin. He pushed the rag roughly into Feival's hands and said, "Here. Be back--later." Later, he thought, yes.

The hinges of the wide door groaned as he made his escape into the cool, dank tunnel, and with his quarters shut solidly away at his back, Graham was left with silence. He scrubbed a hand down his face, palm coming away damp. He could feel the sweat on his brow, his neck, beading under his pits.

He moved quickly away, afraid Feival might follow. He thought then, wildly, that he should have left Feival to Ilya. Ilya knew the game, had been a player long before the world turned sick. He'd been prepared. Graham held his reservations about the man, but there was no denying his efficiency, or his results.

Graham moved with purpose. He knew the tunnels well, knew every dip hidden in shadow, every turn and lift. He found himself at the gym, saw there were others. He ducked away. He passed Fritz's clinic, wound his way through a stretch of dens and sought the mess. It was bustling, packed and roaring where the gym had been merely lively. He almost moved away, but there were so many that Graham knew he could move without notice.

He pushed his way to the back and found Shine, who gave him one look and spotted him a full one. Graham tucked himself into a corner at the bar and tipped the heavy bottle back. He drank until his lungs burned for air and his vision spotted, and then a warm flush developed over his face. Only then did he allow himself to reconsider the situation.

Feival.

Feival, who'd left him dry. Who could survive on his own without the protection of the tunnels, and certainly without Graham.

They'd shared words. By the time things got bad topside, when the ugly hit home, when Graham's brother disappeared off the face of the Earth and then a couple cousins, and then old friends, and then the phone lines went down and internet was gone and there'd been no TV worth a damn for ages anyway, when all of that happened panic set in. Graham tried to stay rational, which was more than most folks could say. He formulated a plan. He found a place, readied it, a place that meant continued existence for the both of them, life, but Feival had just looked at him with a crooked grin and incredulous stare, and he'd said it: Hell and no, Bigfoot.

Hell and no. Graham muttered those same words to himself, gripping the stunted neck of the bottle in his hand. He was not sure what the stuff was. Shine made it by her lonesome. It tasted of citrus and hard alcohol, was best served hot and steaming but worked just as well cool and congealing, as it was now. The batter washed thick down his throat. He stared at some middle point on the far wall, and felt the black inside. That was Feival, he thought: the black

A hand clapped down on his shoulder, and a voice shouted in his ear, “Graham.”

The booze dulled his senses, and Graham stared at the wide pale hand. Knuckles and veins and smooth young skin. Owen, he thought.

The boy squeezed in beside him, dark brows drawn in concern. His gaze flitted down to the bottle, and quickly up again. Graham saw how it closed up, how the mouth tightened at its corners. Graham looked away with a scowl.

“You’re number’s up, old man,” Owen said, with a small jerk of his head.

Graham tightened his grip around the bottle. “Not today.” He raised it for another long swig, and held it out in offering.

Owen ignored the bottle, and held Graham’s gaze. “Queen Anne,” he said. “She’s asking for you.”

Graham stared into the murky liquid, wondering why they all bent backwards for the crazy bitch. The booze seemed brown, lit with yellow. Weird.

Owen said, “Ilya’s there,” and that made Graham laugh.

Owen pushed a fall of jetty hair aside, and pressed his lips together into an unhappy frown. “They’re asking about you.” Owen glanced quickly away, and back again. He leaned closer, and said, “And the trespasser. The other one.”

Silence stretched between them, poignant in the roar of the crowd. Graham could feel Owen’s impatience, his tight energy growing tighter.

“Graham,” he entreated. “What am I supposed to tell them?”

Graham looked at him, then. Owen was, he thought, a good looking boy. A good looking man. An underfoot pain in the ass through his boyhood and now something like an ally. Graham wondered about him sometimes, wondered about Owen so devoted to his pack and the cause.

He said, “Tell them…” and let his words trail away.

Owen stared. “Tell them what? Graham. Ilya’s in there.”

Ilya.

Graham again stared moodily into the bottle. “They’re asking about--” He remembered himself. “About the one I brought back?”

“Yes,” Owen said, and Graham did not miss his exasperation. He looked up then, brow arched in warning, and the young man backed down. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s just--they’ve been laying into me and Rhett.”

Graham did feel bad about that. He debated taking another swig from the bottle but set it reluctantly down. “All right,” he growled, giving himself a good shake. “I’ll be up.”

“And the prisoner?” Graham could see that Owen’s feet were itching to move.

Graham stared at him. “Prisoner,” he echoed.

“I mean--” Owen grimaced. “The trespasser. Come on, Graham. Where you’d stick him? He’s not with Fritz, he’s not in the hold--”

“I’ll bring him.”

“I could--”

“I said, I’ll bring him.” Graham stared Owen down, and Owen’s face turned red, and then he muttered his yes sir and slipped away into the crowd.

Graham stood unmoving for a long minute. He could feel the burn of the alcohol, but his buzz was dead. Mostly he just felt shitty. He started back.

Graham decided he would get Feival to the alpha den. They would make an appearance, and then he would tuck Feival away back to his own quarters. He thought briefly to bring him to Fritz, but the notion did not sit well with him. Someone else putting their hands on Feival? No. Once things settled down, once the others were off his back, Graham decided he would figure out just what to do with Feival Harp. For now, he would bring him to Anne, and let her speak her piece.

It was, unfortunately, a thing easier said than done. Feival fought him all the way. It took many minutes to wrangle him from Graham’s quarters, and many minutes more to pull him down the twists and turns.

Others paused to watch as Graham pinned Feival’s arms to his sides and dragged him. Feival kicked and he spat, and his eyes rolled like an animal’s.

“Stop,” Graham barked, and a heel caught him sharply in the shin. Graham stumbled, just catching himself before he could fall. “God damn it,” he hissed, clutching his leg. Already, he felt the bruise form. Feival curled at his feet, and covered his head with his arms.

“No no no,” he said. “No,” and his body seized tight.

There was a separate ruckus farther down the tunnel, and Graham looked up in time to catch the tall, broad figure of Ilya break through the crowd. Rhett followed closely behind.

“What in God’s name?” Ilya roared, and the crowd skittered back.

Graham stared at the old man, and Rhett palmed his weapon.

“Jesus!” he said. “Him too--”

At Graham’s feet, terrible choking sounds emerged. He stared dumbly down, and did not quite understand. Feival’s legs drew closer to his body, the flesh prickling, the hairs growing dark and thick. Graham blinked, and stepped back, and squinted. He’d not drank that much--had he?

Rhett’s voice came again, vicious in a way Graham had never heard: “Kill it.”

And Ilya: “No!”

And still Graham stared, and he realized belatedly that it really was happening. Weeks in advance, Feival was undergoing the change. Not the smooth transition they all knew, but a horrible, stuttering mutation. It came in jerks, and human teeth clattered across cold metal flooring, and dirty human nails, and blood dripped from the now canine jaws.

By this time the crowd around them had totally dispersed, tripping over themselves in effort to get away. In the immediate area remained only Ilya, Rhett, Graham, and the changed Feival, who crouched with his tail stiff and his scruff bristled, drawing wet, ragged breaths.

“Get it,” Ilya said, in a low, low tone, and then, when no one reacted, added sharply, “Graham.”

Graham reacted to the steel in Ilya’s tone, and without hesitation grabbed a fistful of scruff behind Feival’s head. Jaws snapped, and a low growl escaped, but Graham held firm. He pinned Feival down with a hand at his back, and sharp nails scraped feebly at the floor.

“Get Fritz,” Ilya told Rhett, and Graham stared down in amazement at Feival Harp, who was far more changed than he’d previously thought.

********

“You’re drunk,” Ilya spat. “I can smell it from here.”

Graham said nothing, and avoided Rhett’s gaze from across the room. They were in the hold: he, Rhett, Ilya, and young Owen, who stared at Graham as though he’d given graphic insult to his mother and all her ancestors. There was something else--his hair was wildly askew, there was a flush in his face.

Through it all, Graham said nothing. He stared without expression at the wall and took the abuse. They’d taken Feival away. Fritz had appeared, his nervous pale eyes jumping from Feival to Graham to Ilya to Feival, and then he’d slipped a needle into Feival’s rump and that had been that.

Graham was not drunk--not exactly. He could walk straight, talk straight, his thoughts were not slow, but that was not good enough for Ilya.

“Not on duty,” Graham said.

Ilya turned then, sudden, and shoved him hard in the chest. Not expecting the move, Graham staggered back. He saved himself from a falling only by crashing roughly into the wall, and the anger sparked in him. He lunged forward. Owen and Rhett both stepped in, each with a hand to his shoulders, each forcing him back. Ilya just watched, disgust etched deep in the lines of his face.

“You’re always on duty,” he said, bitter. “All of us--your team, the others--”

Rhett turned his face away from Graham. He said, “Ilya, we got this. We got it.”

“He’s lost his head,” Ilya growled, “and this isn’t the first time.”

Owen spoke. “He’s okay,” he said, squeezing Graham’s shoulder when he tensed for another lunge. “It’s just hard--it’s hard for everyone. We’ll handle it.”

Silence filled the room, and then Ilya said, “See that you do. There are going to be changes around here. Things will be different. I’m not about to let one man pull the whole pack down.” A pause, while that sank in, and then, “Handle this, Rhett.”

Rhett gave his response, which ended with a perfectly respectable “sir” that dragged a rough laugh from Graham. When they were alone, Owen let him go and Rhett punched him hard in the shoulder.

“You fucking idiot!”

“Hey!” Owen pushed between them, a hand pressed to each chest. “No fighting.”

Graham balled his hands into fists. “You two are so fucking amazing. Jumping when he tells you--”

“Sure,” Rhett broke in, with a grim, hungry smile. “Not like you, disappearing with a prisoner and holing up where no one can find you. Leave it to little Owen to drag you from the bottle long enough to do your fucking job.”

At that, Owen bristled. “Hey,” he said.

“What the fuck did you do with him, anyway?” Rhett continued. He counted the points off on his fingers: “He wasn’t in the clinic, the hold, you didn’t take him to Anne--where the fuck were you?”

Graham’s anger deflated, and in the wake of his adrenalin a heavy pulse throbbed between his temples. He scrubbed his hands through his hair and turned away. He wished suddenly that Feival had not returned. Wished Feival had stayed dead. What a mess.

Owen turned on Rhett. “Hey,” he said, warning in his tone. “Watch it. Screaming at each other won’t help.”

Rhett sneered, “Oho, pup’s balls finally dropped--” and Graham cut in.

“Leave off him. He’s right.” A single chair sat at one end of the room, salvaged from somewhere. Graham dragged it out from the corner and sagged into it, leaning over his elbows on his knees. “What did Ilya mean--changes?”

There was silence, and when he looked up it was to catch the tail end of a glance between Owen and Rhett.

“What?” he demanded.

Owen bit his lip, and looked away. Graham looked to Rhett, and saw the dark shadows beneath his eyes. Bigger than usual.

“Anne,” he said. “She. Something happened.”

Graham dropped his head into his hands, scrubbing his fingers again through short blond hair. “What,” he began, “the baby? It’s dead?” Of course it was, he thought. Why did they all act surprised, every time? Their kind would die out sooner rather than later, and maybe it was for the best.

“No. Yes. She is, Graham. The other one we found, up at the water site? It could change, just like you saw. It was fucking rogue. Word is just getting out, but there’s going to be a shit storm.”

“Fuck,” Graham muttered. Anne was dead and that meant--that meant--

“Ilya took over,” Owen said. “It happened when I got back from the mess. I walked in and everything was--it was nuts.”

Already, Rhett’s temper had cooled. He clapped a hand over Owen’s shoulder. “You did what you had to.”

Graham took in Owen’s hand tight over the butt of his weapon. He could imagine well enough what had gone down in the alpha den. “Where’s Feival?” he asked, and when no answer came realized his mistake.

Owen frowned. “Feival?”

Rhett’s lip curled, his temper returned. “I knew it. I knew something was up. Who fuck is that mutt? Why didn’t you say anything? Jesus, Graham!”

Graham sat back in his chair and rubbed his whiskers. They were thick, smooth but rough against the grain. He felt a creeping calm, cold like shock.

Owen stared at him with wide eyes. “You know him? How? I’ve never seen him before in my life--”

“He’s no tunnel pup.”

“So who?”

Graham considered his next words. “An old friend,” he said, at last. “Where is he?”

Rhett stared with hard eyes. “They’ve got him in the clinic. C Team is keeping an eye.”

“Why not just kill him?” Would be easier, he thought. Feival did not belong underground. Graham thought, numbly, that it would be kinder.

“Ilya wants answers,” Rhett told him. “I think we all do.”

“Sure,” Graham said. The others watched him, waiting for some elaboration, but Graham did not know what to say. He felt dead inside, and old. He could hear distantly a growing din from beyond the hold. Word had spread.