‘Then you’ll be needing me.’ The door swung open and Marcie Folan walked in. Like Takapa, she smiled down at him gloatingly, her skin taut over her cheekbones.

Tom felt a jolt of pure fear. Maybe he should try to bring on the change, try to escape. But he knew he was faced now by real adepts. They could change quicker than he could, and against the two of them he knew he wouldn’t stand a chance.

‘Forgive my intrusion,’ Marcie went on. ‘Say, Tom, how about we take the reconstruction back a step further –where are your parents?’

Tom looked away. ‘Where you’ll never find them.’

‘Are you sure? You know how persistent I can be.’ She took hold of his bruised chin in her bony fingers and forced him to look at her. ‘And where is my dear daughter?’

He frowned, a spark of hope stirring somewhere inside. ‘I thought you’d got her.’

‘Did you indeed,’ Marcie remarked icily, her dark eyes boring into him like she was trying to read his thoughts. ‘Takapa, I do believe he’s telling the truth.’

‘We’ll find her.’ With his pink eyes, his short white hair and long narrow face, there was the look of a lab rat about Takapa. ‘In the meantime, after the fun tonight, we’ll ship him over to my Chicago headquarters, prepare him for experimentation.’

Tom yawned noisily. ‘Didn’t your stooges find out enough the last time you had me tied up?’

‘This,’ Takapa hissed, ‘will be the last time. I can assure you of that.’

‘I know what you want,’ Tom informed him, trying to sound confident, hoping to catch them off balance. ‘You’re after the same thing as Stacy –lupine DNA. Once you’ve got that isolated, you can really refine her serum—’

‘And make my army the strongest, the most vicious it can be. Bravo,’ said Takapa dryly. ‘But it’s more than that. With the ’wolf factor fully synthesised and in my control, I can create a lupine toxin that will overcome the defences of even the strongest resister.’ He tittered, adopted a scandalised expression. ‘Everyone we bite will turn, no exceptions.’

Marcie nodded. ‘Think how many humans Takapa’s army will be able to bite in a single night.’

Tom didn’t like to. ‘And then what? You make sure they all take your super-addictive serum and get full control of them?’

‘It’s all in the marketing,’ purred Takapa. ‘Those who embrace the ’wolf will be told it makes them faster, makes their senses keener. Those who attempt to reject the ’wolf, well –we’ll just sell it to them as a cure.’

Marcie smiled. ‘There will be other poor dupes like Stacy Stein, desperate to help these poor victims.’