TEN
Nobody would eat at the Animal Medical Institute's cafeteria by choice. The room is dark as a basement, the food is greasy, and the long, grim picnic tables look ready for a fresh shipment of cadavers. But we interns work about ninety hours a week, and the residents don't fare much better: It's hard to believe there's an actual city out there with restaurants in it.
“I'm starving, but the spaghetti looked like a breeding ground for bacteria,” said Lilliana, carrying two strawberry yogurts and an apple on her tray. “Where do you want to sit?”
“You choose.” I had selected two large chocolate chip cookies and a container of skim milk. Looking at my friend's tiny waist in her chic straight black skirt, I wondered whether I should switch to yogurt, too. Not that it would really help; Lilli was the kind of woman who wore heels and matching French-bra-and-pan ties sets, and I was not. As much as I wanted to keep my husband, I knew I wasn't capable of undergoing some dramatic transformation at this late date.
“I guess we might as well join the boys,” said Lilliana, searching the crowded room for a free table.
I looked around and spotted Sam, who waved us over, winding the spaghetti on his fork with sloppy enthusiasm. Ofer, who had brought his food from home, was using a toothpick to eat meatballs out of a little Tupper-ware container. Sitting a little apart from them, Malachy seemed to be lunching on tea and saltines while reading from a pile of files.
“I've heard a rumor,” said Lilliana while we were still out of earshot, “that the board's trying to remove him from the Institute completely.”
I didn't ask where she'd heard this; the unlikeliest people tended to confide in Lilliana. It was uncanny. If she'd been standing next to the chief of staff for two minutes at the cafeteria, she probably knew more about the man than his secretary did. Give her half an hour, and she'd know more than his wife. But Lilliana would never expose her sources.
“Do they want Mad Mal out because of his health?” I wondered aloud. “Or is his health getting worse because he's on the way out?”
Lilliana shrugged. “I don't know. Either way, he looks awful.” Lately, Malachy's cheekbones were so prominent that he looked positively cadaverous.
“Shoot,” said Lilliana as we reached the table, “I forgot something. You sit, Abra, and I'll be right back.” I put my tray down as Lilliana returned to the food servers.
“Ms. Barrow.” Malachy nodded at me. “Did you get the rads back on that golden retriever yet?”
“No, but the bloods are in.” I took a sip of my milk. “I don't know where to go from here, though. The owner's pretty much tapped out.”
Malachy tapped his chin thoughtfully. “So chemo's not an option, regardless of the diagnosis?”
“Not with us. Maybe the dog's regular vet can work something out.”
“You feel up to making the call?” His voice, I thought, was almost kind.
“I can do it.”
Malachy raised his eyebrows. “You do know it's Mrs. Rosen? The lady who thinks we should give her a discount because we're a teaching hospital?”
“I'll explain it to her.”
“Well, then,” Malachy said, “I suppose that the only thing left for me to say is …”
“Say happy birthday,” said Lilliana, reappearing with a tiny, perfect chocolate cake on her tray. There was just enough room for the big 3 and 0 candles.
“Oh, Lilliana, thanks.” I blew out the candles, and Sam said, “What did you wish for?”
“What all women wish for—true love, happiness, a pedicure.”
“I can help you with part of that,” said Lilliana, handing me a beautiful print of an Impressionist garden, along with a gift certificate for a day spa.
“Of course, I'm tagging along,” she said, peeling her apple in the European fashion.
“With knife skills like that,” said Malachy, “you are truly wasted in social work.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, just stab him, Lilli.”
Ofer's card featured a wolf wearing a woman's dress, looking at Little Red Riding Hood with a kind of embarrassed smirk. The caption read, Really, Red, it's not about the clothes.
“I was a little worried you might be offended by this,” Sam admitted. His card displayed the waxed chest of a muscular young male model, and contained an unfunny joke about older women.
“Very cute, Sam. Thanks.” I wondered why I had the reputation for being prim. For some reason, I thought of Red Mallin, Wildlife Removal Operator. He sure hadn't thought of me as prudish.
Lilliana took a look at Sam's card. “I'm sorry, but this is not a ladies' man, if you catch my drift.”
“Yeah,” said Ofer. “Real men don't wax and pluck and dress up in designer clothes.”
“Yeah,” said Sam, his voice dripping sarcasm. “They call those real men ‘bears.' You know, big, lumberjack-style men. Very pop u lar in the gay community.”
Malachy handed me his card last. It was very plain, with just a pressed wildflower on the cover, and inside, he had scrawled: We need to discuss something.
I closed the card quickly and stared at him, a cold wave of fear hitting me. Was he going to suggest terminating my internship?
Then Malachy stood up, nearly dropping his files. I reacted quickly and caught them, but some of the papers still tumbled out. “Thank you, Ms. Barrow,” he said. “I don't suppose I could impose on you to leave this little gathering a bit prematurely?”
Swallowing back my fear, I followed him to the elevator banks. We didn't speak as we went down to the basement level, where Malachy had been given a small office when he'd lost his position on one of the major research teams. I hadn't actually been inside his office since my initial interview last spring.
The elevator doors slid open and Malachy said, “After you.” I waited for him to precede me down the hall, noticing how unsteady his gait seemed as different scenarios played out in my head. Ms. Barrow, you are the only intern I can trust with the news of my imminent departure. Ms. Barrow, I have come to the realization that you are not really qualified to be on my team. The only thought that I instantly dismissed was that my austere boss might be coming on to me in some fashion.
As we walked past a number of offices and turned a corner, I began to realize that Malachy was taking me somewhere I hadn't been before. This section of the corridor was darker, the fluorescent lights flickering over peeling paint and the occasional broken chair left in a corner.
“Dr. Knox,” I said, because we never called him Malachy to his face, “where are we going?”
“Here.” Malachy stopped in front of a door at the end of the long hallway. Handing me the files he had been carrying, he fumbled with a set of keys.
“I don't understand what's going on here,” I said. “Are you letting me go from the group?”
Malachy cursed under his breath as his trembling hands prevented him from inserting the key in the lock. Amazed at my boldness, I put my hand over his. His skin felt like ice.
“Please,” I said. “Are you kicking me out?”
Malachy turned to me with a scowl. “No, I'm not kicking you out, you foolish girl. I'm taking you in here to show you something that could get me kicked out if anyone knew.”
“But why me?” I said, almost too surprised to speak. “Why not the others?”
“Because they are not in close personal contact with someone who has been exposed to the lycanthropy virus. Damn,” Malachy said, dropping the keys to the dingy concrete floor.
Well, Abra, I just hope you're not going to catch some disease from that man. The memory of my mother's voice ringing in my ears, I bent down to retrieve the keys. “Which one is it?” My voice sounded strained and unnatural.
“The bronze.”
I opened the door, revealing what appeared to be a small, dimly lit laboratory. In one large cage, there was a Dalmatian, in another a German shepherd. Both dogs appeared to be asleep, but the fact that our appearance hadn't wakened them let me know that they had been sedated. A third cage stood empty, and I thought of Pia, the wolf hybrid. A stainless steel table in the middle of the room was equipped with restraints, and I also noticed a small refrigerator, a Bunsen burner, a centrifuge, numerous vials, a microscope, and what appeared to be a kitchen blender.
“I thought you were no longer involved in research,” I commented, trying to sound offhand. The truth was, my mother wasn't completely wrong when she called me a hypochondriac, and all of my husband's recent erratic behavior was running through my mind.
“Officially, I'm not.” Malachy shambled over to a computer that looked at least ten years old. “But I couldn't just abandon my work to a bunch of incompetent wankers, now could I?” He tapped a few keys and an image came up on the screen: the familiar image of human DNA, a double helix. “Do you know that human chromosome 17 shares linkage with canid chromosome 23?”
I shook my head. “Not specifically, no.” I knew we were all mammals, and that we shared a common ancestor if you went back far enough, but I'd never delved too deeply into genetics.
Malachy tapped out a key and a segment of DNA removed itself, turned upside down, and then was reinserted. “This suggests that at some point, there was a mutation—an inversion, probably.”
Behind me, the Dalmatian growled as it fought off the effects of its sedation. “Dr. Knox,” I said, trying to call his attention to the animal.
“But wait. Look what happens when you reshuffle a few more genes.” On screen, the DNA began to shift and recombine. “There you go—the sequence for canid DNA.”
“But that's at the genetic level,” I said, suddenly grasping his point.
“Exactly,” said Malachy. “I always suspected that the lycanthropy virus could affect cell function, and I surmised that there might even be some shift at the level of the nuclear DNA, so that one cell would start looking and acting like another kind of cell. But it took me a while to understand that the change was taking place in the mitochondrial DNA.”
I looked at Malachy, suddenly wondering if, in fact, his illness was muddling his brain. “If you're telling me that my husband could have been infected with this virus, I'd like to know exactly what you think that means.” Because at the moment, every werewolf movie I'd ever seen was running through my head, ending, disconcertingly, with an image of my husband turning into Jack Nicholson.
Malachy raised his eyebrows. “My dear girl, that is what I'm trying to find out. No one knows precisely how mitochondrial and nuclear DNA interact, but clearly, it's complex. All I can say is, there's a genetic factor, and then there's an environmental factor. But I do think it would make sense for your husband to pay me a little visit.”
I could just imagine how that suggestion would go over. “I don't think—” I began, but we were interrupted by a long moan from the Dalmatian.
“Blast. I'd better check on him. What I really need, of course, is a pure wolf specimen.” Malachy knelt down awkwardly to open the cage door, and before I could react, the Dalmatian rushed him, snarling and going for the throat. I tried to reach for the animal's legs, to pull him up off-balance, but I couldn't move fast enough. I could see blood, and Malachy's hands were raised, trying to block the dog's head.
“Telazol,” Malachy shouted, “in the fridge.” I opened the small refrigerator, grabbed the syringe, and plunged it into the dog's flank. The Dalmatian lashed its neck to the right, releasing Malachy as it reacted to me, the new threat. Growling, the Dalmatian curled its upper lip as it prepared to pounce.
“Oh God,” I said, knowing the sedative was not going to take effect in time. And then the dog was on me, his front paws pressing down on my shoulders, and I couldn't help it: I closed my eyes. There was a sharp crack, and I screamed as the full weight of the dog came down on my chest. I looked up, and there was Malachy looming over me, except that for a confused second he didn't look like Malachy at all. His eyes seemed to glow with an eerie, phosphorescent blue-green light, and he looked bigger, wilder, stronger, his arms grotesquely attenuated, as if he had stretched them out from across the room to break the Dalmatian's neck.
But that's impossible, I thought, and then I passed out.
“Jesus,” someone said.
“Is she bleeding?”
I was wondering the same thing myself as I came back to consciousness with Lilliana and Ofer and Sam standing around me. It's very disconcerting to be the victim of a medical drama; I think that when we watch this stuff on television, we all tend to identify with the doctors and nurses, the ones standing on their feet with all their clothes on and their skin intact.
“Okay, someone help me pick this guy up and get an IV going,” said Ofer.
Lilliana knelt down to stroke my hair. “Abra, you okay?”
I tried to nod as Ofer and another intern lifted the dead dog off me.
Malachy crouched down beside me. “I'm sorry,” he said, his voice softer than I had ever heard it before, filled with regret. “Did he bite you? Did he break the skin?”
I looked up at him, remembering that strange, distorted glimpse of him that I'd had before I'd passed out. Shock, I thought, but couldn't help wondering: Had Malachy used himself as a test subject? If so, he certainly hadn't turned into a wolf man.
“Your jacket is ripped,” I said, realizing that Malachy's lab coat had been shredded, as if he'd worn it through a cyclone.
“Irrelevant. Show me where you're injured,” Malachy said, and I realized I hadn't answered his last question.
I met his eyes, understanding why this was his paramount concern. “He didn't bite me.”
Malachy looked so relieved that I caught a glimpse of what he must have looked like when he was younger, softer, more capable of emotion. I found myself wondering if he ever had been in a real romantic relationship, or if science was the only passion that had ever moved him. Perhaps this secret underground laboratory was the place where his truest self could emerge. And then I realized: Malachy must have called the rest of the team down to help me. Which meant it wasn't a secret anymore.
For the rest of the day, people kept coming up to me and making bad Dalmatian jokes. Want a fur coat, Abra? Just say the word. I tried not to think about the wolf card, reversed. Did a Dalmatian attack count? Or was this some divine coyote practical joke? That's the problem with tarot cards: Anything can mean anything.
Sam walked by me in the hall. “You okay now? Not seeing spots?” I pretended an exasperation I did not feel. But all of us were pretending, really. Underneath our facade of normalcy, we were wound tight with the tension of not knowing our fates. By the end of the day, we heard the official confirmation: Malachy Knox was no longer employed by the Animal Medical Institute.
We hadn't seen our teacher since the EMTs had arrived, crowding into the lab along with Mr. Simcox, the cadaverous head of administrative affairs. We'd managed to convince the emergency medical technicians that I didn't need to go to the emergency room, and then Mr. Simcox had summoned two guards to escort Malachy from the building.
Something about Malachy's unruffled demeanor suggested to me that he'd managed to cram some files into his briefcase while Simcox had been distracted.
“You'll all be fine,” he said, nonchalantly removing his torn lab coat and pulling a tweed jacket off a hook on the back of the door. His bony arms, I noticed, protruded from the frayed cuffs of his shirt as if the sleeves had shrunk—or his arms had grown.
As the guards herded him out, Malachy added, “They'll just assign you all to other teams.”
“But Dr. Knox,” said Sam, “what's going to happen to you?”
Malachy shocked us all by grinning with real amusement. “To tell you the truth, my boy, I haven't the faintest idea.” And with that, he left us, whistling under his breath and swinging his briefcase with surprising vigor as he walked out of our lives.