Page 53 of Catnapped

Darian’s brows shot up. “I mean, I work with lycanthropes often enough, but I take the base precautions. They’re all wolves, though.”

“You do not match any known wolf strains. It’s just a blank on species type.” I tapped on the species result, went into the diagnostics software, and tapped in the request for a classification of species rather than a specific species. Narrowing it down to mammal or avian would help, and if I got lucky, I’d be able to narrow it down to a family. “I’m trying to get a family classification out of the system, but we’ll see.”

A minute later, the system pinged, informing me it was unable to detect a base class of virus strain.

How odd. I frowned, pulled out the test samples, including the wolf strain of the lycanthropy virus, and set up a new test. Within thirty seconds, the scanner did its job, reporting everything I might ever want to know about the wolf virus. Puzzled over the complete lack of data on the strain, I went back into Darian’s DNA results and tapped in a request for the system to check for known shapeshifter DNA combinations.

It, too, returned back negative.

Interesting.

“According to your expression, you either hate or love me right now, and I’m not sure which. Should I be worried?”

“Normally, when these things register a lycanthropy infection, it’s able to judge the base classification of the virus, which is typically mammal or avian. It has no idea what kind of virus you’ve been infected with. You also are negative for any of the known shapeshifter DNA combinations, which can flag people as infected with lycanthropy without actually having lycanthropy. But this is reporting you are infected with the virus.”

Darian shrugged. “That would explain some of my uncle’s behavior.”

“Which one?”

“All of them.”

I nodded. “With how many cases of early onset lycanthropy have been cropping up lately, to the point doctors are pursuing it as viable treatments for terminal patients, it’s entirely possible you haven’t been infected long. You’ll want to monitor the virus levels for progression, but beyond that, you shouldn’t be contagious unless you go really wild.”

“Can you be a little more specific about that? How wild is wild here?”

“That depends. How’s your dad compared to an incubus?” With a wicked grin, I began tapping through Darian’s DNA to see if he might pose an infection risk should he unleash his inner beast—or his devilish side. “Is your daddy just a big, nasty devilish general, or is he secretly some sort of sex god on top of it?”

“This is not a question I have ever wanted to ask my mother, truth be told—or either of my fathers. Some things a son just doesn’t want to know. That’s one of them.”

“I regret to inform you that we’re about to find out.” Giggling over having turned the tables on him, I delved into the dark depths of his genetics, clicking through the DNA trees to the section dedicated to reproduction. “Congratulations! You’re eighty-nine percent male.”

“Pardon?”

“Humans don’t express gender as pure male or female. It’s a range. In this software, we use a range of zero to a hundred, one side of the chart leaning towards male, the other side of the chart leaning towards female. A zero sometimes presents as a hermaphrodite, although that’s not always the case. A better example of someone who is near zero on this chart would be someone with asexual tendencies, neither presenting as male or female. Eighty-nine percent male is pretty up there in terms of pure masculinity.”

“And what percentage are you?”

“I’m an example of extreme femininity; I have less than a percent of male traits in my genetics. This is pretty rare. Honestly, I’d consider you to be at a healthier percentage than I am—as evidenced by my development of cancer. Too much of a good thing can easily become a bad thing, and it wouldn’t surprise me if my high percentage on this specific chart led to the cancer problem.” After a moment, I shrugged. “It could also be the deodorant. I’ll switch to something with fewer harsh chemicals, but you know how something can be too little, too late.”

“This conversation may have just changed my relationship with my deodorant,” he admitted.

“And with your non-existent sex life. So, your manliness levels are pretty healthy, but you’re not registering on the incubus charts. However, your daddy is packing goods in some departments, as your sperm count is high, and you’re registering as highly fertile. That is not an angelic trait. That said, the pulse came back with a high percentage of female sperm, so if you’re wanting sons, you’re definitely going to be a source of frustration for your wife unless she wants a lot of kids hoping for a boy. Frankly, I recommend you hire an incubus if you want a son.”

“Alas, I am not a king of any country, so I am not terribly concerned with what gender my children are, should I have any. What else can you tell me, Dr. Diana?”

“If I’m your doctor, you’re probably going to die, but I’ll recommend you go ask a real doctor—or your smug uncles. I bet they were aware of your current situation.”

“For the record, I really do not see this as at all a disadvantage. As I said earlier, I quite like living. Since I work with lycanthropes as part of my investigative work, I already know the rules for the newly infected. I just need to report to the CDC and register, which doesn’t bother me.”

I eyed his records. “I could probably figure out how to register you, although you’d be better off having your father go with you for the registration. The CDC doesn’t tend to give the children of triads who somehow contract lycanthropy much of a hard time about it. They will want to do a contact tracing to see where you got the infection.”

“Are you infected with lycanthropy? I mean, we’ve been sharing a room.”

“Sharing a room isn’t sufficient to pass on lycanthropy, and I’m tested every year. That said, I am not tested with the high sensitivity scanners. The scanners I’m tested with could have a ten year or longer incubation without the virus being picked up. It catches the virus a stage before becoming infectious, typically.” As I already had his data, I went to work preparing the scanner for a new reading. “I’d like to test the vials first, but then I can run mine through to see if I have picked it up. Like you, I do have a lot of contact with lycanthropes, so honesty? It’s viable.”

“The Devil is underhanded enough he’d help the virus along, too.”

Lucifer would. I frowned. “But who would he have taken the virus from?”