“I am truly sorry, Mr. And Mrs. Willoughby, but there is nothing more that we can do,” said Dr. Fred Patterson, Chief of Medicine at Hudson City Memorial Hospital. He frowned deeply, as he stared down at the patient lying comatose among a nest of wires and tubes. “Mason's injuries are too severe. We repaired what we could, but his lungs, heart and liver are failing. With total life support he'll probably last another two weeks, maybe three. Right now it's a question of when, not if.”

Evelyn Willoughby choked back a sob as she turned her face into her husband Thomas' broad chest. Her hands clenched tightly in his jacket.

“I'm afraid that's just not acceptable,” Thomas Willoughby replied gruffly. His eyes shone with his own repressed tears. “If you can't save my son, I'll find someone who can.”

"Mr. Willoughby - Thomas," Patterson said softly, "I understand your frustration, but there's truly nothing …"

"Don't you dare!" Thomas spat in reply, "I don't want or need your platitudes. This is my son and I'll be damned if I let him die."

Without waiting for a reply, Thomas stalked from the room. His wife clutched tightly to his side. No parent should outlive their child. Thomas Willoughby was not about to let that happen.

William Willoughby, the eldest scion of the Willoughby clan, heard shouting as he approached his father's office. He opened the door and ducked as a black missile impacted against the wall next to doorway. Plastic shrapnel exploded from the wall. Several pieces shot across William's field of vision as he turned away to protect himself.

“Good Heavens, father. I'm so glad your aim hasn't improved with age,” William joked, “What did that phone ever do to you?”

“Don't start, Will.” Thomas Willoughby growled. “It's been almost two weeks and all I hear is the same old shit. We're sorry Mr. Willougby, but Mason's injuries are too severe; there's too much damage; he's too weak for surgery.” The sneer that curled his father's lips indicated Thomas' opinion. “They're all so afraid of a malpractice suit that they're unwilling to do their damn jobs and save your brother, no matter how much money I waive under their noses!”

William made himself comfortable in a chair opposite his father's desk, brushing the remains of the shattered cell phone from his hair and clothes. “How many more hospitals and doctors are there to contact?”

“None, I've searched the whole continent and half of Europe and Asia. They all say it can't be done. I'm running out of time, Will. They've already had to revive him three times this last week. Your mother is hysterical, and refuses to leave his room. Patterson doesn't think he'll last the week.”

William nodded. The thought of his younger brother dying was disturbing and, like his father, William had yet to accept it. Mason was so full of life, that it was hard to see him wasting away in that hospital bed.

While his father had been contacting every legitmate doctor, surgeon, and hospital available, William had put out his own inquiries among the less savory side of society. Unlike his father, William actually had a lead, such as it was.

“Then it's a good thing I came today,” William said, his voice light.

“Why? What have you found?” The desperation in his father's voice was painful to hear. William couldn't reconcile this side of his rather autocratic father, the patriarch of one of Hudson City's royalty.

“I've been in contact with someone who says he can save Mason.”

“What? Who?”

William watched his father's expression change from confusion to guarded hope. He pulled a business card and a small zip drive from his pocket and handed them to his father. “The man calls himself Prometheus. There's a dossier on the zip drive, as well as copies of my e-mail conversations with him. The card has a number on it that will only be good for another twenty-four hours or so.”

“What aren't you telling me?”

William grimaced a little, before answering, “Well, he's not exactly the most reputable of characters, as you'll see in the dossier. His ideas and methods are – unorthodox, to say the least. He's also a fugitive from the feds. Apparently, his experiments have been outlawed, and he's also wanted for questioning in a series of crimes involving various meta-humans ...”

William let his voice trail off as he noticed that his father was absorbed in his laptop, obviously devouring the data on the zip drive. William waited a few minutes before getting up.

“I'll be in the kitchen if you need me,” He said as he left. His father only grunted in response. William nodded to himself in satisfaction as he closed the office door behind him.

Thomas couldn't believe his ears. His eyes were wide and his jaw felt like it had just hit his chest. Suddenly, his face grew hot as his disbelief turned to anger. “What do you mean there's only a seventy percent chance your serum will work? That's not what you told my son, William. I didn't risk Mason's life bringing him here and fork over nearly three million dollars for you to sit here and tell me ...”

“William did not provide me with adequate data. The current charts indicate severe systemic distress, the liver has completely failed, and his lungs are only operating at thirty percent efficiency.” The response was cold and calculating and did nothing to assuage Thomas's outrage. In fact, nothing about the man calling himself Prometheus made Thomas comfortable. The only reason he was dealing with the fugitive was to save his son.

“Can your damn serum save him or not?”

“Most certainly, if the retro-virus makes the necessary changes to his DNA and metabolism before the radiation kills him. As weak as he is, I have my doubts...”

“Keep your doubts to yourself and save my son!” Thomas spat. “That is what I'm paying you for.”

Thomas stalked to a corner of the room he had set up for Prometheus in the family's Victorian mansion, distancing himself from the renegade scientist. He refused to allow any doubts, any possibilities other than his son making a full recovery. Saving Mason had become something more than a father trying to save his son, it was about pride and family honor. He'd been told no, and nobody refused the Willoughbys, especially anyone of a lower social standing.

Thomas leaned against the wall, and glared silently as Prometheus pulled out a large syringe. A pale, sickly orange glow pulsed from a vial Prometheus snapped into place on the end of the syringe, casting eerie shadows across the fugitive's face as he removed the air bubbles from the needle.

Thomas swallowed against rising bile as the needle approached Mason's IV and fought the urge to turn away as Prometheus went about saving his son.

Thomas stared at his reflection in the mirror above the sink. Bleary blood shot eyes gazed back blankly from thick dark circles around them. Sleep evaded him. Only the black oblivion of a druken stupor allowed him any rest, when the dreams and memories were hidden in the alcoholic fog of forgetfulness, the horrific images of his son's broken body tearing itself apart in spasms of torment, faded to sinister shadows dancing in the mist.

It had taken nearly five days for Mason's new metabolism to regenerate enough for him to come out of the coma. His first coherent questions were about his date that terrible night. He took it hard when he learned she hadn't survived the auto accident. Mason' s face twisted in anguish, his mutated cat-like eyes filled with loathing as he whispered, “You should have let me die.”

No amount of alcohol could chase away the memory of those haunted words. Nor could it blank the fact that Prometheus' serum had so radically changed Mason's DNA, fusing animal DNA with his own, that the doctors couldn't classify him as fully human any more. The changes were so drastic on a cellular level that technically Mason was a Willoughby in name only.

In trying so desperately to save his son, Thomas had caused such irreparable harm that he wondered if he'd made the right choice, if it wouldn't have been better to let Mason go. Were the consequences of his pride worth the price, in scars, pain, suffering, and secrets, that the family and Mason had paid and would continue to pay.

Only time and God could tell, but somehow Thomas doubted it.