The next morning Tabby and I were startled awake by a knock on her door.
Tabitha tried to get out of bed but her knees wobbled and gave out on her. I caught her and gently laid her back down, ignoring her giggling comments about what a cute butt I had. She was acting drunk, despite not having consumed any alcohol last night. Could werewolves even get drunk?
I moved to the door and checked the screen built into the wall panel, pulling up a view of the hallway outside. Lo and behold it was Io waiting out there.
“Ryan, I know you’re in there. Let me in.”
How did she know I was here?
I reached out with my left hand and cycled the door open, remembering precisely as I did so that Tabby and I were still butt naked. I reached down with both hands to cover up.
Io eyed me up and down and tsked appreciatively. “It’s about time, honestly. You know, she’s been talking about doing this for over a week. I was starting to think she wasn’t going to work up the nerve to ask you.”
I closed the door behind her with a tap on the control panel and started looking for my clothes, ignoring the disappointed look on Io’s face.
“Hey Io!” Tabby said with a big grin. “Told you I could take him. Pay up.”
Io smirked and pulled a 30-dollar bill out of her bra, setting it on Tabitha’s nightstand without looking away from me as I pulled my underwear back on.
Tabitha cleared her throat. “Our bet was for sixty.”
“And my money says you only managed to fit half of it inside you. Didn’t she, Ryan?”
I shook my head. “I learned a long time ago to stay out of cat fights. But just for my own curiosity, who started the bet?”
Tabitha immediately pointed to Io, who held her hands up in defeat. “Guilty as charged. You’re welcome by the way. Our girl here is more competitive than she is shy. Who knows how long this little rendezvous would’ve taken without me nudging things in the right direction.”
Tabitha shrugged in a ‘she’s not wrong’ way and started looking for her own clothing.
“I’m sure you can think of an appropriate way to thank me.” Io gave me a suggestive wink and glanced pointedly at my crotch.
“Oh um, I mean I’m pretty strapped for cash,” I admitted as I pulled my pants on with my right hand and buttoned them with my left. My mind paused for a second and focused on my left hand. It had regrown. Not a dinosaur hand. Not a manticore arm-claw-cannon-thing. A perfect replica of my real human hand. “Uh…what the fuck?”
Tabitha and Io both looked over at me, noticing the change as if for the first time.
Tabby, now wearing a bra but nothing else, crossed the room and immediately grabbed my left wrist. She took a deep breath and her wolf ears twitched suspiciously. Then her eyes widened in shock.
“Ryan? Your pheromones have shifted again just since last night. When you first got here I detected a change which I later put together was just the new manticore dna but now? Now I’m picking up werewolf scent from you, and not just like my scent that’s still lingering on you—”
“Mmmhmm,” Io agreed, sounding like she was enjoying that particular aroma.
Tabitha carried on, unperturbed, “... but like the scent that a male werewolf gives off after he has been blooded and bedded. It’s like you somehow absorbed my lycanthropy when we fucked.” Tabitha’s eyes met mine and suddenly flashed dangerously, like she was getting ideas. I’m not sure what kind of ideas she was getting. “You probably got my regenerative factor, and it regrew your hand. Who knows what else you can do with the manticore and primal blood running through your veins.”
Her words did not have nearly the same effect on me that seeing—and feeling—my very own hand regrown in front of me was having.
But Tabitha wasn’t done brainstorming. “This is…this is pretty wild, honestly. Just imagine what you could do with other monster dna! If you can get powers by fighting or by fucking them I bet we could get you a whole arsenal of powers in no time. Plenty of the monster-girls at HQ would be more than happy to spread their legs for us, I mean you, sorry, and if it only takes a scratch or bite we could just let you take a hit every now and again out in the field and pretty soon you could be unstoppable!”
I held up my hands—both of them, fuck it felt good to actually have two hands again—and stepped back a bit. “Whoa, hold on. That shit was painful when the Primal scratched me and when Claire hit me with those quills. I almost died last time.”
Tabitha winced. “That’s true. Although to be fair you were fine after last night. Maybe sex is the key. You can absorb the powers via osmosis as long as it’s through fucking, and the transformations seem to be almost imperceptible. But when you contract it during combat the transformations are more violent and potentially lethal. Hmm. How would you feel about an orgy?”
My eyes widened in shock. “Whoa, uh. I’m not ready to be pimped out to every monster chick in the Bureau, alright? Let’s slow your roll here.”
Tabitha frowned. “Ryan. I’m talking about the future of Eastport here, maybe even the entire mortal world. You heard Hannah. You need to get as strong as possible as fast as possible. Some sacrifices will need to be made in order to make that happen. So either you start taking hits whenever we get into a fight with a strong enough monster that it’s worth adding its powers to your arsenal, or we start a tinder and get you balls deep in as many monster girls as possible. Which is it gonna be?”
“I’m a little confused, I thought you wanted a serious relationship with me?”
Tabitha nodded. “I do. That doesn’t mean I’m above sharing.”
Well so fucking much for me being a one-woman-kinda-guy, huh?
“You’re the chosen one, Ryan. You need to get more powerful. As your partner and your trainer, it’s my job to make that happen. As your girlfriend, it’s an added perk that my job allows me to lure hot girls into your bed thanks to my boyfriend’s massive cock. Besides, after last night I’m going to need a while to recover even with my healing factor. Having a few eager girls waiting to take care of you while I recharge? That sounds really fucking hot. C’mon Ryan, we can make this work.” She stared at me, daring me to challenge her.
Why the hell am I fighting her on this? This is every guy’s dream.
Io slithered over to us and cut in. “I’m sorry to interrupt, both your morning and this fascinating revelation of all Ryan’s fantastic new powers. Please allow me to be the first volunteer in your scheme to pimp him out by the way. But I’ve got something you both need to see immediately. May I?” She held up her tablet questioningly.
Tabby crossed her arms, making it clear that she was not going to be dropping this anytime soon. I was not convinced this was totally necessary, and was grateful for Io’s distraction. We both nodded and encouraged her to carry on.
“I set my drones to track Agent Boris after the incident at the apartment building. After he interrupted your hunt yesterday, he went on a rampage all throughout lower Eastport. He bounced from one hunt to another and killed sixteen Feral monsters in one afternoon. His hellhounds tore them all to shreds afterwards. A bunch of Keepers are pissed but not because he executed those monsters but because he stole their kills. Nobody is even asking why monsters are suddenly going Feral in droves like this, and I’m starting to think something is up.”
I snapped my fingers and pointed at Io’s tablet, “Thank you, see this is what I was trying to tell you yesterday morning! Two nights ago I overheard Aleksei talking to this scientist down in the labs. They were talking about something they kept calling ‘the Signal’ and I was getting real bad vibes from the way they were acting. Boris walked up a bit later and it seemed like they were all in cahoots. Like there’s some kind of conspiracy up, but about what I didn’t know until yesterday.”
“What about yesterday?” Io asked.
“Claire,” Tabitha said softly, staring off at a wall without seeing it. “She was hearing something for almost a week that was slowly driving her nuts. A-a buzzing or something, right?”
I nodded, my mood instantly somber at being forced to remember Claire’s fate.
“We heard it too. It almost made me wolf out. Twice.”
Io blinked in shock. “You? But you’re always so in control!”
I cut in. “She is. But all the same her eyes went full wolf and she was a heartbeat away from going Feral until I got her to focus. That’s not by accident. Someone designed this thing, I just know it. I heard it as well, and it was nearly overwhelming just in a few short seconds. I cannot imagine the strength it took for Claire to resist the urge to go Feral for days on end. But with no escape or way to center herself it was only a matter of time.”
Tabitha was pacing back and forth across the room deep in thought while Io was typing furiously on her keyboard. I took the opportunity to pull my pants on.
“If that Signal is being played all across Eastport there are hundreds, thousands of monsters who could be on the verge of going Feral. If enough of them go off at once, the Bureau will be overwhelmed. It’ll be chaos,” Tabby realized.
The vision I received from Hannah played in my mind once more. “Worse. What Hannah showed me was even worse than that. Feral monsters running around was just the start. There were massive fires, giants, dozens of anomalies filling the skies, hell there might have even been a dragon, I don’t know. It was five-alarm Armageddon in Eastport. I think whatever this is, this is just the start. And I think Aleksei knows about it already.”
Io hissed in frustration and tossed her tablet against the nearest wall, chipping off a piece of its protective case and leaving a dent in the concrete. “Someone doesn’t want me finding any answers to these questions. Our archives keep giving me ‘access denied’ prompts anytime I try to look for anything related to a sound that could drive monsters crazy. Nothing is coming up, which never happens. Someone is trying to hide something.”
Tabitha slid open her wardrobe and started pulling on clothes.
“Where are we going?” I asked immediately.
“I’m going to ask Aleksei about this Signal. He made me a promise a long time ago to never lie to me. If I ask him to his face, he’ll tell me the truth. He promised.”
Io and I exchanged a worried glance, and I went looking for my shirt.
“We’re coming with you, girl,” Io said.
Tabitha halted as she pulled on her combat boots, her lips already forming around a ‘no’ when she looked up at me and Io. A hint of a smile passed across her normally stern features. “Alright. It’ll be good to have a team watching my back. Thank you, both.”
I nodded and said, “Of course.”
Io on the other hand had a different tactic. “Oh, my help doesn’t come for free. My price is dibs on prince charming over here.”
Tabitha’s eyes darted to Io’s huge tits and–judging by her expression–it was clear that she would have no problem agreeing to the lamia’s terms.
Rolling my eyes, I glanced down at my healed left hand and flexed the fingers once more. For the first time in over a year of dealing with phantom pains and unbearable grief after Hannah’s loss, I finally felt whole again. There was not a price I could place on that.
Looking up at Tabitha pulling a jacket around her slim-fit frame and Io plucking her tablet from the floor, I suddenly realized that I was at peace again.
My heart skipped a beat as the other shoe dropped.
Now I had something to lose…again.