Lover Beware

eyes amused and knowing.
    “You tend to evoke a reaction from people, don’t you?”
    “Usually. Why don’t we start my expert consultation with listening? You can tell me what you think you know about lupi and I’ll correct any misinformation.”
    “Good enough.” The door to the stairwell was metal with the usual red Exit sign over it. She reached for it.
    Somehow he was there before her, opening the door and holding it for her. He hadn’t seemed to rush, yet he’d moved very quickly. Lily stopped, studying him. He looked elegant and not at all civilized in spite of his trendy black clothing. “Legend says lupi are fast. Really fast.”
    He just smiled.
    Something shivered down her spine. She got her feet moving and didn’t speak again until they both were on the stairs, headed down. “I know the legal history best. Until 1930, the only federal law related to lupi was the one making it a crime not to report someone, ah, afflicted with lycanthropy. State laws varied widely. Most of them treated lupi as humans who had a dangerous disease. Some called for them to be killed outright. Then Dr. Abraham Geddes proved that lycanthropy could not be transmitted, as had previously been believed.”
    “The Change isn’t catching,” he agreed mildly.
    “Right. It’s an inherited condition. Folklore and experts alike agree that the trait is sex-linked. There are no female lupi.”
    “True.”
    “I guess the experts can’t be wrong about everything. Anyway, soon after that came Carr v. the State of Texas . The Supreme Court’s ruling effectively made lupi legally human, but with a congenital disease, one that, well…”
    “Makes us mad. Incurably insane. We were locked up, if discovered. Usually in chains.”
    “Yes. Well, that was some time ago. There continued to be a good deal of debate about whether lupi were human. Some of those of the Blood are obviously nonhuman, of course.”
    “Gremlins, brownies, the odd pooka or banshee.”
    “Pookas? I thought they were—never mind.” She shook her head. Later she could ask if pookas were really extinct or not.
    They’d reached the fourth-floor landing. He was still moving easily. She was, too, though her heart rate was up slightly. She wondered if he could hear it. Lupi were said to have extremely acute hearing. “In 1964 Dr. Beatrice Pargenter discovered a serum that inhibited the Change, and everyone who considered lycanthropy a disease applauded. It was considered an enormous, and humane, breakthrough. Congress passed the registration laws, which remained in effect until five years ago.”
    “You do have your legal history down.”
    “I’ve boned up.”
    Rule Turner’s forehead was smooth. No tattoo, nor any sign that one had been removed. The authorities had used a special, silver-infused dye to tattoo the registration number, since the body of a were would otherwise have healed the tiny wounds inflicted by a needle within minutes. “You never registered, did you?”
    “Why, Detective, I do believe that’s a personal question.”
    “And I do believe you’re obnoxious. That’s a personal comment, by the way. I understand the drug was very unpopular with the lupi.”
    “Since the side effects ranged from vertigo to nausea to impotence—yes, it was unpopular. But even if they’d been able to refine their damned drug, no one wanted it.”
    His voice had lost its subtle balance between seduction and mockery. The emotion she heard was real, and personal.
    They’d reached the subbasement. He pushed open the door and held it for her, as he had before. She went through it, uncomfortably aware that he was inviting her to expose her back to him.
    The parking garage looked like others everywhere—gray and ugly. The air was hot and smelled of exhaust fumes. The light was flat, fluorescent, and grimly bright. “You didn’t want to give up the Change.”
    “We no more wish to give it up than you would want to be chemically lobotomized. Still, I suppose it was an improvement over being killed or castrated.”
    She paused, startled. “Castrated?”
    “Ah. A gap in your legal history, Detective.” His eyes were oddly pale in the artificial light. “Yes, for a few years some states dealt with ‘the lupi problem’ the way scientists have dealt with fruit flies—by rendering us unable to breed. It was considered more humane than shooting us on sight, like rabid dogs.”
    He radiated anger, far more than the glimpse she’d had before. His face