Malcolm exhaled roughly and ran a hand over his sleek black widow’s peak. “It’s an idiotic risk.”
“It is.” Simon’s face was indomitable. He sat at a disheveled desk and threw one leg over the corner. He removed a golden key from his pocket and stared at it. “The unknown can always be a risk but could be well worth it.”
“Just to give Kate a new project? Just so she feels like she can help someone?”
“No.”
“It would have been better if that thing upstairs had died,” Malcolm muttered as he slumped on a bench near the glowing hearth.
“That thing is her sister.” Simon shot the other man a fierce glare. “And she poses no threat.”
“Except maybe to Kate’s guilty conscience.” Malcolm pressed his boot onto a glowing ember that had popped from the fire. “But that thing down there is the enemy. You’re inviting a terrible nightmare.”
“I’ll take additional precautions beyond chains and locked doors.” Simon smiled with an idea. “I’ll send for Penny Carter and ask her to provide us with something for a bit of extra protection. I’m sure she has something useful lying about that shop of hers.”
“You can manhandle that werewolf now because it’s a juvenile. It’s inexperienced or it would have been long gone already, leaving a trail of bodies in its wake. With time, though, it will develop its single skill: killing. It’s as inevitable as death.”
“I believe otherwise,” Simon stated quietly.
“Why? Why take such a risk when there’s a simple solution?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do. This group has made a commitment to use our knowledge and power to help those who can’t protect themselves.”
Malcolm approached Simon. “Trust me, it can protect itself.”
“Are we so callous and righteous as to simply say she is lost, and walk away?”
“Yes.”
Simon merely shrugged. “I won’t. And neither will Kate.”
Malcolm leaned heavily on the desk. “Just admit it. You love the idea of having a pet werewolf. I see that gleam in your eye.”
Simon looked up quizzically. “Have you no science in you, Malcolm? Aren’t you the least bit curious?”
“No.”
“Let me ask you, as the resident expert on these things. If Kate can create wulfsyl, will it control Charlotte’s transformations?”
“I kill them. I don’t raise them.” The Scotsman shook his head and shrugged. “I’ve heard different stories, but they all hint that wulfsyl makes the lycanthrope more aware during its transformation. Whether that’s a good thing or bad, depends on your point of view. But I do know that once they take it, they can’t stop, like opium eaters. And werewolves who are separated from it go mad with rage.”
“We best make sure we don’t run out of it.”
“It may wear the skin of a child. It may act like a puppy now because it hasn’t killed, but like any wild beast, there will come a tipping point. Think of a wolf. As a cub, it is all play and reaction, but once it learns to kill, it is never a cub again. All prey becomes food. All prey.”
Simon’s tone remained firm. “Even wolves can be domesticated.”
Malcolm slammed his hand down on the table. “It’s a monster, Simon! A monster!” He stared into Simon’s unmoved gaze and dropped his head. “Maybe your friend, Barker, was right to leave. If he knew anything, it was you. Maybe he felt if he stayed, you’d get him killed.”
Simon bristled, dropping his feet to the floor and templing his fingers in front of him in an effort to quiet the pain those words caused. He struggled to keep his voice even. “Would you be good enough to compile a list of William Blake’s writings which use those four names that I might study?” He held Malcolm’s dark gaze but then purposefully turned to the sheets of runes on the desk, taking up a pencil. “You know what we’re about, Malcolm. If you don’t agree with it, I won’t hold you here. I didn’t stop Nick. I won’t stop you.”
After a second, Simon heard angry mutterings about blood and stupidity, and the door shut as Malcolm went out. He threw down the pencil and slumped back in his chair.