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The spymaster rose from the chair and inclined his head when Ethan entered the room. Graystone closed the door and remained standing while Ethan and Weber took their seats. Weber quickly launched his report. He opened a brown folder and extricated a stack of eight-by-eleven photographs.
Ethan examined them in silence.
Picture after picture of mangled, decapitated bodies. Some humans. Some werewolves. Then he saw the dead new breed. Ethan paused, examining them carefully. The new breed faintly resembled common werewolves. While the common werewolves shared ninety percent of their traits of Canis lupus, only three times bigger, stronger, faster and deadlier, the new breed was a bipedal beast with the body of a man and head of the wolf, coarse hair that covered its entire body, misshapen skull, and grotesque in appearance. The stuff of a madman's nightmare.
"These new breeds, are they formerly humans?" Ethan asked.
"I didn’t perform a necropsy on this particular incident. My best guess is our kind.”
“Does Alpha Strain affect humans the same way it does wolves?”
The spymaster’s expression turned grave. “Humans who had been infected with the alpha strain couldn’t be controlled once the transformation took place, unlike common-born werewolves. There was no sign of their intelligence nor humanity left. Their life span is also short unless the infected take continuous doses of the alpha strain. An infected human wants nothing, but kills the next creature and feeds. With werewolves, the infected retains some degree of cognitive functions and intelligence. They can be somewhat controlled until the effect is wearing off."
“And how long is that?”
“Infected humans will last ten days unless they are given a continuous dose. With werewolves, one moon cycle or so.”
Interesting, Ethan pondered heavily on that information. As a purebred direwolf, his very blood was toxic to others. A drop of his blood in an open wound could make a common werewolf or human suffer sporadic transformations before they succumbed into madness. The only way to obtain a pureblood power was through breeding. A halfling usually retained fifty percent of its sire’s power. Less if the dame was the purebred direwolf. And now, somebody had found a way to stabilize the alpha strain. If they succeeded, any werewolf could be made to be as strong as a direwolf.
This would only spell disaster.
Wolves were pack animals with a strong alpha who maintained the law and the pack dynamic. If everybody was an alpha, there would be fights for dominance and territory. Chaos would soon follow and it would attract unwanted attentions from humans. Werewolves had been successfully running under the radar within the general population because the alphas of each clan kept everybody’s paws on the line.
“What's the incubation period for the virus to manifest from infection to full transformation?" asked Ethan.
"With the latest strain?” Weber made a face as if he just tasted something distasteful. “Minutes, for both humans and wolves. I’ve witnessed it myself before I cut the poor suckers down.”
Ethan was taken aback. He hadn’t expected whoever hired these goons had made such advanced progress with the strain. This isn’t good. If they perfect the formula, all hell breaks loose, he thought grimly.
Rumor had it that his grandfather was the one who started to create manmade werewolves when he was the alpha. Fearing that pureblood direwolves would one day be extinct, his grandfather had his scientists extract the essence of what made a direwolf the king of all wolves. The substance was later named the Alpha Strain. His grandfather had slaughtered many old purebloods for his research. His action caused dissent within packs that ended with a coup d’etat. Ethan’s father assassinated his grandfather and took control as the alpha, preventing a civil war within the pack. He shut down the research and silenced the scientists that made them.
During his father’s reign, the Alpha Strain was a taboo subject to even whisper between the walls of Lunar Mansion. Ethan thought that was the end of House Hunter’s dark chapter. Then, two years ago, some beasts were reported killing pack members in a most gruesome way, and once again, the cursed Alpha Strain resurfaced.
Someone had revived the project. Ethan was convinced that the mastermind behind it didn’t only seek to preserve the pureblood line, he also wanted a global domination. Get rid of humans from the planet and populate the earth with only cryptids.
Contrary to popular belief, a man didn’t turn into a werewolf because he was bitten by one. A wolfman was born, the genetic anomalies were passed from parents to child. A common wolfman usually transformed into a regular wolf: fur, tail and quadrupedal, albeit stronger, larger, and more agile than their animal counterpart. A direwolf retained human characteristics when transformed. They walked on two feet, with fully functioning sharp and deadly five-digit claws instead of paws. Their heads morphed into the heads of a wolf, longer snout, razor-sharp teeth, a sharper sense of hearing, sight and smell. A direwolf was far larger than a common wolfman, hence the enhanced strength.
The spymaster’s information made Ethan uneasy. He tapped his fingers on the armrest. “Did you find any direct link that Cain’s the one responsible for these monstrosities?”
“That’s the problem. I haven't been able to find any connection to Cain. I suspect Cain financed this project and we’re still chasing the leads. An associate of mine is a former FBI forensic accountant. He had been working on this since last spring. We went through everything with a fine-tooth comb. We're sure we'll find some evidence sooner or later. Nothing can stay hidden in this day and age."
"What about the facility where these new breeds are manufactured?"
"We're still trying to locate it. I have a feeling it's an underground lab with the capability to generate its own electricity to avoid detection. We monitor any place that uses large energy consumption. With this level of sophistication in genetic engineering, I highly doubt they run a rinky-dink operation."
Ethan furrowed his brows. “Without concrete evidence that Cain’s the mind behind this project, all we have are rumors. I can’t mete out punishment based on rumors. It is not done.”
Weber looked chastised. “Forgive me. I haven’t been able to find the person behind your plane accident. If I may speak freely, Alpha. . .”
“Speak.”
“Why continue to pretend that you have amnesia? The one who came up with your marrying a mysterious woman was Cain. That alone is enough to bring him to tribunal trial.”
Ethan leaned back on the backrest. “I can. To be honest, I’m curious.”
Weber gave him a questioning look.
“I’m curious how far my cousin will carry on with this charade. Cain always played it safe before. One might wonder why he took such a
