Read Online Helix: Plague of Ghouls by Pat Flewwelling - Free Book Online Page B

been here nearly a month, and I’ve yet to harass any deer.” She caught his hand and pulled him to a stop. She searched his eyes.
    “Just . . .” He slid his hands up and down her arms. “Be cautious , all right?”
    She nodded wearily.
    They kissed, and he left her behind, thinking about orange eyes and seizures. But in the end, Digger’s eyes turned white. Dead white, like cataracts. Not orange.
    Ishmael was only steps from the ATV when he heard light feet bounding after him. Holly stopped a few feet away, fidgeting and running her hand down her shirt. “He’s going to be all right,” she said. She massaged her hand. “Dep. He’ll make it through this. Helen, too.”
    “Sure,” he said.
    “They’re going to be all right.” She curled her hands into fists and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. White fuzz erupted along her angular cheekbones, and Ishmael moved to keep her downwind, before her change pheromones forced him into another early cycle. “Right?” She opened her mouth to say or ask something else. Bones cracked, and she shut her eyes so tightly that tears came out. Fangs began to descend, bloody and flecked with torn gum tissue. Whatever she had to say, she decided to keep it to herself. What she needed, immediately, were the trees, and she needed to run. She tore off her coat and left it hanging on a bush. A second later, she was gone.
    Ishmael mounted the ATV, switched on the headlights, and drove northwest toward the main house, feeling very much like he was going the wrong way.
     
     

Chapter Four
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    THE AUTOMATED ALARM spoke in its best Star Trek computer voice. “Front door, is, ajar. Front door, is, ajar.” Ishmael shut the weather-proofed door behind him, and the alarm twittered a three-note thank you. Someone was walking along the upstairs landing, talking to somebody else at the far end of the hall. Voices echoed across the flagstone lobby. Under the grand portrait of the late Mrs. Haberman, firewood had been laid artistically in the great hearth, but no one had lit a fire.
    Something was missing, though he couldn’t place it. All the furniture was there, as well as all the couches, coffee tables, and potted plants. He went across the lobby to the lounge and adjoining cafeteria to pick up a late dinner. Nothing looked out of order, but nothing felt right either. Irritated, he checked his fly. That wasn’t the problem. He asked for his supper to go, and charged it to his Wyrd member number, as usual. He headed across the lobby to the stairs. Those creaked the same way they always had. He went down the hall toward the east wing, past artwork painted by Wyrd members past and present, and passed an art nouveau sculpture everyone fondled for good luck, and still he couldn’t shake the sense that the main house was missing something. The echoes were louder. The air was quieter.
    He’d once had a private room in the main house, as befitting a high ranking member of the Council. Now that room belonged to Burley, and even with the door closed, it smelled of orange blossom perfume and sandalwood incense.
    The library door opened abruptly and Ishmael walked into the frustrated man who was coming out. Coffee splashed between them. They apologized like strangers, until they recognized each other. The Padre seemed much the same as he did the night they left Wyndham Farms: wiry, short, and light on his feet. Unlike the other Tiger Dogs, he’d packed on energy instead of muscle mass. “How the hell are you, man?” the Padre asked. He made like he was going to shake one of Ishmael’s hands, before he remembered they were both occupied with coffee and takeout boxes.
    “I’m doing all right,” Ishmael lied. “I thought you were staying out in the Hollow.”
    “Studying,” the Padre said, tossing his thumb over his shoulder at the library door behind him.
    It was the last thing Ishmael had expected to hear.
    “I need to work,” the Padre said. He