Seung stopped him from putting it back on the side table. “I’ll make a deal with you. For every bite you take, you can ask a question about the Fenrir. You eat the whole bowl, and you can touch it.”
“I’m having flashbacks of my foster parents telling me they’d let me read if I ate my vegetables.”
“Does that mean we have a deal?” She pushed back a lock of black hair.
“Absolutely.” Reese ate a bite, tasting nothing. “Why is it…?” He directed his words with his spoon. “Why is it noncorporeal?”
“Because it’s not here anymore.”
Reese swallowed. “Not here? In what way?”
She flicked a look at the bowl of oatmeal.
Reese shoveled in a spoonful.
“I mean here. As in, we used to Phase and take their form. Now they can’t reach us and we can’t reach them.”
He shook his spoon. “Did the Anubis ever have a separate form? I mean, I never observed anything in the lab that suggested it. And there was nothing in Marcus’s notes that hinted he might have read anything or hypothesized that it could. But when we partitioned out the ichor, it obviously had a way to communicate with itself. Do you think it could have if we’d given it the—”
Seung shook her head while grinning.
“I have a feeling there isn’t enough oatmeal here for me to get all my questions answered.”
“No. On both accounts. Not enough oatmeal, and no, the Anubis never had a separate form. When it manifested, it came from within the Varu who housed it, after he died, and not across the Varana.”
“The what?”
“It’s what we call the place the Fenrir are from.”
“When you say the place it’s from….” Reese had never put much stock in alien life but after what he’d been through over the last month, the last few days, and now that he held the gaze of a phantom wolf, anything was possible.
“I’m not sure how to explain it. I guess you could call it another world, but same planet?”
“You mean another dimension.”
Seung shrugged. “I suppose.”
“How does it get here?”
“The Cana call them.”
Reese frowned while forcing another bite of oatmeal down his throat. “I’ve heard that word before.” He shook his head. “Where have I…”
“It’s not like Cana grow on trees.”
Reese’s exhale stuttered. “Paul… he called Luca a Cana.”
“Because he’s one. It’s why Nash’s life is in danger. Another Varu named Isaiah needs Luca. And Isaiah won’t hesitate to kill Nash to get Luca in his pack.”
“Pack, as in wolf pack. I mean, it makes sense. It’s just…” Reese snorted. “You think this Isaiah could kill Nash?” Because Reese had seen the man mow down armies of men and survive a helicopter crash that hardly left remains of the craft.
“I know he can. He’ll just have to get close enough to do it. And that will take getting Luca to trust him.”
“And Nash.”
“Luca is the Cana. Nash will do whatever he wants.”
He would. Just like Koda commanded his men, Luca commanded Nash.