"Is your dad a werewolf, too?" I asked, after I'd digested the information and realized that the Herveaux family was at least prosperous, and possibly rich. They'd worked hard for it, though; and they'd keep working hard, unless the older Mr. Herveaux could control his gambling.
"Both my parents," Alcide said, after a pause.
"Oh, sorry." I wasn't sure what I was apologizing for, but it was safer than not.
"That's the only way to produce a Were child," he said, after a moment. I couldn't tell if he was explaining to be polite, or because he really thought I should know.
"So how come America's not full of werewolves and shapeshifters?" I asked, after I'd considered his statement.
"Like must marry like to produce another, which is not always doable. And each union only produces one child with the trait. Infant mortality is high."
"So, if you marry another werewolf, one of your kids will be a werebaby?"
"The condition will manifest itself at the onset of, ah, puberty."
"Oh, that's awful. Being a teenager is tough enough."
He smiled, not at me, but at the road. "Yeah, it does complicate things."
"So, your ex-girlfriend ... she a shifter?"
"Yeah. I don't normally date shifters, but I guess I thought with her it would be different. Weres and shifters are strongly attracted to each other. Animal magnetism, I guess," Alcide said, as an attempt at humor.
My boss, also a shifter, had been glad to make friends with other shifters in the area. He had been hanging out with a maenad ("dating" would be too sweet a word for their relationship), but she'd moved on. Now, Sam was hoping to find another compatible shifter. He felt more comfortable with a strange human, like me, or another shifter, than he did with regular women. When he'd told me that, he'd meant it as a compliment, or maybe just as a simple statement; but it had hurt me a little, though my abnormality had been borne in on me since I was very young.
Telepathy doesn't wait for puberty.
"How come?" I asked baldly. "How come you thought it would be different?"
"She told me she was sterile. I found out she was on birth control pills. Big difference. I'm not passing this along. Even a shifter and a werewolf may have a child who has to change at the full moon, though only kids of a pure couple - both Weres or both shifters - can change at will,"
Food for thought, there. "So you normally date regular old girls. But doesn't it make it hard to date? Keeping secret such a big, ah, factor, in your life?"
"Yeah," he admitted. "Dating regular girls can be a pain. But I have to date someone." There was an edge of desperation to his rumbly voice.
I gave that a long moment's contemplation, and then I closed my eyes and counted to ten. I was missing Bill in a most elemental and unexpected way. My first clue had been the tug-below-the-waist I'd felt when I'd watched my tape of The Last of the Mohicans the week before and I'd fixated on Daniel Day-Lewis bounding through the forest. If I could appear from behind a tree before he saw Madeleine Stowe ...
I was going to have to watch my step.
"So, if you bite someone, they won't turn into a werewolf?" I decided to change the direction of my thoughts. Then I remembered the last time Bill had bitten me, and felt a rush of heat through ... oh, hell.
"That's when you get your wolf-man. Like the ones in the movies. They die pretty quick, poor people. And that's not passed along, if they, ah, engender children in their human form. If it's when they're in their altered form, the baby is miscarried."
"How interesting." I could not think of one other thing to say.
"But there's that element of the supernatural, too, just like with vampires," Alcide said, still not looking in my direction. "The tie-in of genetics and the supernatural element, that's what no one seems to understand. We just can't tell the world we exist, like the vampires did. We'd be locked up in zoos, sterilized, ghettoized - because we're sometimes animals. Going public just seems to make the vampires glamorous and rich." He sounded more than a little bitter.
"So how come you're telling me all this, right off the bat? If it's such a big secret?" He had given me more information in ten minutes than I'd had from Bill in months.
"If I'm going to be spending a few days with you, it will make my life a lot easier if you know. I figure you have your own problems, and it seems the vampires have some power over you, too. I don't think you'll tell. And if the worst happens, and I've been utterly wrong about you, I'll ask Eric to pay you a visit and wipe out your memory." He shook his head in baffled irritation. "I don't know why, really. I just feel like I know you."
I couldn't think of a response to that, but I had to speak. Silence would lend too much importance to his last sentence. "I'm sorry the vampires have a hold on your dad. But I have to find Bill. If this is the only way I can do it, this is what I have to do. I at least owe him that much, even if ..." My voice trailed off. I didn't want to finish the sentence. All the possible endings were too sad, too final.
He shrugged, a large movement on Alcide Herveaux. "Taking a pretty girl to a bar isn't that big a deal," he reassured me again, trying to bolster my spirits.
In his position, I might not have been so generous. "Is your dad a constant gambler?"
"Only since my mother died," Alcide said, after a long pause.
"I'm sorry." I kept my eyes off his face in case he needed some privacy. "I don't have either of my parents," I offered.
"They been gone long?"
"Since I was seven."
"Who raised you?"
"My grandmother raised me and my brother."
"She still living?"
"No. She died this year. She was murdered."
"Tough." He was matter-of-fact.
"Yeah." I had one more question. "Did both your parents tell you about yourself?"
"No. My grandfather told me when I was about thirteen. He'd noticed the signs. I just don't know how orphaned Weres get through it without guidance."
"That would be really rough."
"We try to keep aware of all the Weres breeding in the area, so no one will go unwarned."
Even a secondhand warning would be better than no warning at all. But still, such a session would be a major trauma in anyone's life.
We stopped in Vicksburg to get gas. I offered to pay for filling the tank, but Alcide told me firmly this could go on his books as a business expense, since he did in fact need to see some customers. He waved off my offer to pump the gas, too. He did accept the cup of coffee I bought him, with as many thanks as if it had been a new suit. It was a cold, bright day, and I took a brisk walk around the travel center to stretch my legs before climbing back into the cab of the truck.