The Better to Hold You Read Online Free PDF Page A

star, a brilliant researcher with a reputation for thinking outside the box and using unorthodox methodologies. In vet school, I had studied his infamous experiments transplanting the brains of rhesus monkeys, and had been torn between horror and awe at the implications of his work. More recently, he had been involved in isolating the so-called lycanthropy virus, a rare disorder that caused some individuals’ cells to behave like fetal or stem cells, rendering them capable of radical shifts in form and function. Despite the name, the virus did not actually turn the host into a wolf—or, at least, that was the prevailing wisdom. Malachy himself would only say that the virus manifested itself very differently in different hosts, and that canid DNA was among the most plastic in the animal kingdom. He also liked to point out that humans and wolves had been associating with each other since the days when our own DNA hadn’t yet been fixed in its current arrangement.
    I wasn’t entirely sure what Malachy had done that had resulted in his ouster from the research unit and had brought him down to the far humbler position of, as he put it, “shepherding yearlings around.” But what ever it was, it had affected his health as well as his career.
    Underneath his wildly curling black hair, Malachy’s craggy face was pallid and drawn, and where his wrists were visible under his lab coat, they appeared almost skeletal. I knew for a fact that he was forty-six, but he looked a good decade older.
    “Well, Ms. Barrow,” said Malachy, bringing my attention back to the here and now, “I can only assume that your current state of vague disinterest with our feline patient is the result of your brush with the city’s underbelly. Although a countertheory might involve the fact that your husband has just returned from a long trip. He was in Romania, researching the legendary Unwolves, was he not?”
    What ever was wrong with Malachy Knox clearly did not affect his intelligence. He had gotten my message, I realized. He had just wanted to keep me off-balance.
    “Yes,” I said, “Hunter was looking into the stories about giant wolves.”
    “I’m sorry,” said Ofer, not sounding it, “but what could it possibly matter if her husband is wasting his time looking for vampires in Transylvania? Shouldn’t we be concentrating on our patient?” He pointed with one stubby-fingered hand, indicated the limp cat lying glassy-eyed on the examining table.
    “Not vampires, Ofer—lycanthropes.” Malachy wrote the word out on the whiteboard behind him with a dry erase pen. “Although many people confuse the Greek vrykolakas with the Slavic vậrcolac, the former was supposed to be a sort of undead creature, not unlike a vampire, while I’ve heard the vậrcolac variously described as a wolf demon or a wizard with shapeshifting abilities. The pricolici, on the other hand, are large, wolflike creatures inhabited by human souls—Unwolves, or, more commonly, werewolves.”
    Malachy’s blue eyes seemed to glow; I had never seen him so animated. Behind our staff leader’s back, Sam pointed a finger at his temple and twirled it, indicating his opinion of Malachy’s mental state.
    “Of course, I would be insane if I believed that, Sam,” Malachy said without turning around, making it clear he knew what Sam was doing. “I suspect that what the Romanians have are two distinct genetic strains of the lycanthropy virus. What I wouldn’t give to get my hands on some tissue samples.” He dragged his hand through his already unkempt hair. “I kept trying to convince the board that I needed a research grant to go to the Carpathian Mountains, but of course all that got derailed.”
    I exchanged a glance with Lilliana. This was the first time Malachy had alluded to the mysterious event that had precipitated his removal from the research department. “Which was why I was so pleased,” Malachy went on, a small smile playing about his thin lips, “when I