He was a monster.
Everything he touched he defiled. The girl standing beneath the streetlamp was just as beautiful as the woman he’d killed. All his victims were, because life itself was precious and sacred.
Warg Daddy took a step closer, pawing angrily at the ground, fury in those cold yellow eyes. Looking at Warg Daddy was like staring into a black mirror and seeing the worst of himself, the monster James had become.
Can we count on you, James?
He remembered Samuel’s dream, his vision of a future where people of all races and religions lived together in harmony, where gay and straight were treated the same. He understood that dream now. And if he killed these children, or permitted Warg Daddy to kill them, he killed that dream. He would not.
‘Come on, James.’ It was Samuel, by his side. ‘Leave Warg Daddy to his kill.’
James shook his head.
Warg Daddy snarled, more menacing than ever. He took a step forward.
James held his ground. ‘No,’ he said to the big wolf. ‘Leave the children. Let them go.’
Warg Daddy scratched at the ground with sharp claws. He flexed his broad shoulders and readied his hind legs, preparing to spring.
James braced himself.
Warg Daddy powered forward, a rush of blackness silhouetted by the bright streetlamp. Two yellow points of light and flashing white teeth closed in on James.
James flew aside, feeling the sweep of air as the great wolf flew past, jaws snapping closed on empty space. He spun round, his tail swishing behind him as Warg Daddy landed and turned to face him again.
Samuel stood to one side, his brow knotted in confusion. ‘James! Leave him. We have to get away.’
Warg Daddy prowled forward, unchecked fury contorting his features. He opened his jaws and roared. The noise tore through the enclosed alleyway like a thunderstorm, yet James felt no fear. He had always been part of something bigger than himself. He had lost sight of that vision briefly, but now he saw everything in pin-sharp focus. Right and wrong had revealed themselves, and James had no doubt which side he was on. He positioned himself in front of the children and the injured men and squared up to the wild wolf before him.
Warg Daddy rushed him again, his huge bulk flying out of the darkness, strong jaws and sharp teeth slavering. Again James dodged, but Warg Daddy was ready this time. The beast twisted in mid-air, slashing with his forepaws and raking James’ back.
James fell sideways, feeling deadly claws rip clumps of fur from his back and side. He rolled over, avoiding the snap of jaws as Warg Daddy spun around and lunged. Back onto his paws he sprang, turning once again to face his opponent.
Behind Warg Daddy, Samuel gazed on in horror.
James snarled back at Warg Daddy, showing his own teeth in defiance, but the great black creature advanced steadily. The beast lowered his head, protecting his soft flank and underbelly. Step by step Warg Daddy came closer, yellow eyes narrowed. James backed away slowly, never once taking his gaze from those cruel eyes.
Suddenly Warg Daddy charged, forepaws raised, jaws widening to bite. James met him head on, and they danced together, flanks slick with sweat, jaws and talons locked in a grim pirouette. The black wolf sought to push him over, but James stepped sideways to keep his balance. Again Warg Daddy used his greater strength to wrongfoot James, grappling with locked jaws, twisting James’ neck to one side.
James fought back against his larger opponent, but Warg Daddy’s powerful head and neck steadily forced him down as they turned and scrabbled beneath the cold silver light of the moon.
Still Samuel watched, unable or unwilling to intervene.
James’ head was twisted almost to the ground, and he felt his strength dwindling. Warg Daddy had the upper hand now and pressed home his advantage, forcing James’ head to the hard stone. Finally, James’ legs gave way and he toppled over, exposing his soft underbelly to Warg Daddy’s jaws.
James watched as the huge black snout opened wide, showing teeth like knives ready to cut his flesh. The monster placed his forepaws firmly on James’ chest, claws digging into his fur and skin, and drew back his head to bite.
James waited helplessly for the final lunge, but just as the black jaws started to rush toward him, the shape of another wolf appeared behind. Long claws lashed out and caught Warg Daddy’s snout full on.
Samuel’s attack took Warg Daddy completely by surprise. He squealed and dropped James like a hot coal, springing away and leaving him free again. James righted himself quickly and jumped back onto all fours.
Samuel stood beside him now, wolf by wolf. Before them the black bulk of Warg Daddy spun in confusion and rage, an unearthly roar spilling from his throat. The scratch marks on his snout were clearly visible and he rubbed at them with one paw. The beast paced angrily, continuing to snarl furiously. He drew himself up to his full height, towering even over Samuel, baring his teeth and snorting hot breath like a bull.
But Samuel advanced a step and showed his teeth too. ‘Flee!’ he growled.
Warg Daddy glared angrily a while longer before speaking. ‘You’ll pay for this. Both of you.’ With that, he turned and ran, sprinting down the alleyway toward the dead end of the wall. With a huge bound he was over it and gone.
James turned to face Samuel, but as he did so, a shout from the opposite end of the lane rang out. An armed policeman stood there, his carbine raised to fire.
‘Run!’ shouted James.
A shot rang out like a firecracker. Then another. Bullets began to fly past James so close he heard them ping. ‘Run!’ he shouted again. He powered forward, heading toward the back wall of the alley.
But Samuel did not run with him. Instead his friend lurched to the side and fell.
James ran back to him. ‘Samuel?’
His friend lay on the ground, panting loudly, his thick black fur wet with sweat. A slow trickle of blood leaked from a wound on his flank. ‘I’ve been hit. It’s over, James. Leave me.’
‘No!’
‘Save yourself.’
More shouts came from the main road. Bullets whickered past, kicking up dust around them.
‘I won’t leave you here, Samuel.’ James licked at the wound, cleaning away the blood and the dirt. ‘Come on.’ He butted his friend gently, then forcefully in frustration.
Samuel lay still on the ground, breathing quickly as blood spilled from his wound.
‘Come on!’ raged James.
Slowly, Samuel began to move. He stood unsteadily, one leg buckled beneath him. ‘I can’t walk.’
‘Yes you can.’ James pushed at his friend. ‘You didn’t let me throw my life away that night by the river, and I’m not letting you throw yours away now. Now run!’
Samuel staggered forward, uncertainly at first, but picking up speed as they ran together down the alleyway. The kids cowered together, watching them go. A shout came from the distant end of the alley, ‘Civilians present! Hold your fire!’ The shots ceased and together he and Samuel raced to the back wall. They leapt as one.
Chapter Eighty-Three
Samuel’s hind legs clipped the top of the high brick wall as he and James flew over it. He cried out in pain and crashed to the ground, landing awkwardly in the empty street beyond.
‘Come on!’ said James, ‘We have to keep going.’
Samuel limped forward as best he could, but the jump had injured his legs. His face grimaced with every step, and blood flowed steadily from the bullet wound in his side. He staggered as far as a nearby public square before collapsing.
James turned back and licked his face. ‘Come on.’
Samuel panted breathlessly. ‘No. I can’t walk any more. I need to rest.’ He lay down in the road, resting his damaged legs.
James nuzzled up to him and licked away the fresh blood from the fur. The blood flowed faster now, but James had no way of binding the wound. He pressed a paw against it, but Samuel winced in agony. ‘The bullet’s still inside. I can feel it.’
Tears began t
o fill James’ eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for. It wasn’t your fault. You did the right thing.’
‘Did I? Then why did this happen? How can harm come to good people when they do the right thing?’ Anger crept into his voice. He couldn’t keep it at bay. If the world was just, how could this have been allowed to happen?
‘It doesn’t matter if people are good or bad, James. Only whether they are strong or weak, wolf or prey.’
‘Then you lied to me,’ cried James. ‘You said that strong and weak could live together. Black and white, and gay and straight too.’
Samuel was panting hard now, even though he was barely moving. ‘I didn’t lie to you, James. I’ve never lied.’
‘Then wolf and prey must be able to live together too. They must.’
‘How can that happen, James? Wolves eat prey.’
‘I don’t know. I thought you knew. But if they can’t live together, then everything you told me was a lie.’
‘I didn’t lie, James. Or if I did, I didn’t mean to.’ Samuel’s breath began to ease slightly. His chest rose and fell steadily as he lay there, James nestling against him to keep him warm.
‘I’m sorry, Samuel. I didn’t mean to call you a liar. You’re the only truly honest person I know.’
Samuel’s features relaxed as if the pain were slowly melting away. ‘What will you do now?’ he asked. ‘You can’t go back to Leanna. She’ll rip you to pieces, and I don’t mean that as a figure of speech. Even if she doesn’t, Warg Daddy and the Wolf Brothers will.’
‘Not me, us,’ said James. ‘You and me together. We can’t go back.’
‘No. So what, then?’
‘We run. We run together. It doesn’t matter where, as long as you’re with me. Will you come?’
‘I’ll come with you James. Wherever you want to go. I’ll stay with you forever. You know I will.’ Samuel wheezed softly then and closed his eyes.
James licked Samuel’s eyes with his wet tongue. The eyes stayed closed. He licked the wound too, cleaning the blood away from the fur. Samuel didn’t speak again, or move. Gradually the flow of blood dwindled until it finally stopped.
In the sky, the moon shone cold and indifferent to the affairs of humans and wolves alike. It had touched James deeply with its silver fingers, changing him forever, yet still it cared nothing for him. Its icy face knew neither justice nor love. Perhaps that was the true lesson here – that justice and love burned only in human hearts.
James turned to tell this to Samuel, but the face of his friend was now as cold and unfeeling as the moon that watched over them. ‘Samuel? Samuel!’ The tears fell freely as James crouched over his friend, weeping softly. ‘Samuel,’ he said. ‘I love you.’
Samuel, who had saved him from himself, accepted him and loved him despite all his flaws and weaknesses, had been taken from him. James continued to cry quietly for a while. Sadness washed over him like an ocean of pain. Slowly, as he cried, his tears turned to rage. Rage against the policeman who had fired the bullet that killed his friend, rage against Warg Daddy whose lust for violence had forced James to choose sides, but strongest of all, rage against the moon, whose blind eyes stared down with unfeeling coldness.
Rage was all James had now. Everything else had been taken from him.
He stood and rose onto hind legs, howling with anger and hate at the distant moon and the cruel world it looked down on.
Chapter Eighty-Four
South East London, New Year morning, full moon
The sky had cleared and Chris Crohn could see the moon clearly now, shining silvery bright in the sky above Seth’s car.
They’d eventually managed to extricate themselves from the dead end, but not before an angry driver had gouged a long scratch in the car’s paintwork with his keys.
‘My car!’ said Seth. ‘He scratched my car!’
The man thumped his fist against the side window and made a rude gesture. ‘You useless fuckers!’ he shouted. ‘Now we’re all stuck here.’ He indicated the dozens of cars that had followed Chris and Seth down this one-way dead-end street and blocked each other from leaving.
‘Just keep the doors locked,’ said Chris. ‘He’ll go away soon.’
The man had stalked back to his car eventually, but it had taken a long time for all the cars that had followed them down the wrong turning to reverse out or turn around, and for them to get back onto the main road. By the time they’d managed that, the traffic was crawling along slower than ever and they resigned themselves to a long ride.
Seth had taken over navigation, using his GPS to steer them through the labyrinth of streets that was South East London. Chris caught a good view of Canary Wharf as they crept slowly onward. The bright lights of London’s financial sector stood proudly on the opposite side of the river, its high-rise offices picked out against the night sky by rows and columns of bright windows, topped off by high-intensity aircraft warning lights blinking steadily like lighthouses.
Here on the south side of the river, the massed ranks of social housing interspersed with clusters of charity shops, burger and kebab sellers, and rough-looking pubs felt like a world away. Only the shining moon seemed unchanged, staring down indifferently on rich and poor alike.
‘I wish we were back in Greenwich,’ moaned Seth. ‘I wish we’d never come. I should never have listened to you,’ he accused.
‘Just keep driving,’ said Chris sullenly.
But that wasn’t easy. Crowds of people surged along the road, pushing between the crawling cars, shouting and jeering as they went. Masked men began to appear among the revellers, marching purposefully in groups, chanting slogans, carrying weapons. Fights broke out, and Chris and Seth finally ground to a complete standstill in the middle of a crowded street.
People filled the road making any movement impossible, either forward or back. Seth honked the horn in frustration but that proved to be a mistake. A group of youths began to bang the side of the car and a couple of guys hauled themselves up onto the front and sat on it, swigging beer from bottles, throwing insolent stares at Chris and Seth, as if challenging them to do something about it.
Seth switched off the engine. ‘This is hopeless. We’re going nowhere. My car’s getting wrecked and it’s all your fault.’
‘It’s not my fault,’ said Chris. ‘If we’d left sooner, like I wanted to, this would never have happened.’
‘It only happened because I let you talk me into believing this stupid werewolf idea.’
‘Well it could be worse,’ said Chris, ignoring a guy who was mooning him through the passenger window.
‘How?’ demanded Seth.
‘At least we haven’t seen any werewolves.’
Seth snorted in derision.
A tinkle of breaking glass rang out on Chris’ side of the street. He looked out to see masked men climbing through a broken plate glass window to loot a discount store. There was no sign of any police on the ground. Nothing was being done to control the violence.
They sat together in silence for a while, struggling to ignore the crowds of people breaking against the car like human waves. Dozens of people pushed past, breaking the mirrors off the side of the car, snapping the aerial off the roof. Metal scraped along the paintwork and glass bottles smashed on the ground as the crowd made its way past the stranded car.
Suddenly the sea of people began to part in front of them. The crowd was breaking up and starting to run.
‘What is it?’ asked Seth.
Screams and shouts rang out. A young woman was knocked to the ground next to the car and others ran over her prone body, stumbling blindly as they sought to get away from something. She screamed for help, but total panic had set in and no one paid her any heed.
‘Do something!’ wailed Seth. ‘Help her!’
Chris hesitated, then tried to push the door open. ‘I can’t open it,’ he yelled, struggling to force it open against the onrush. He looked out through the side window, but t
he woman had vanished beneath the crush.
Seth’s face turned white. ‘What’s happening? What are they running from?’
As if in answer to his question, a huge dark shape appeared from out of the crowd. It bounded down the road and hurled itself against the car windscreen, blocking out the light. It struck the windscreen with a crash that shook the vehicle violently.
Chris gazed in astonishment. A werewolf stood on the front of the car just two feet away from his face, nothing separating them but the glass of the car’s windscreen. The beast roared, filling Chris’ vision with its huge jaws, dagger-like canine teeth, drooling tongue and the deep hollow of its throat. The roar blocked out all other sound, seemingly loud enough to shatter the glass.
Chris sat as still as a rock in his seat. Beside him, Seth shook and whimpered, all self-control lost.
A space had appeared around the vehicle as people fled, leaving Chris and Seth alone with the monster. The ruined body of the trampled woman lay on the ground where she had fallen, her legs twisted to one side, blood trickling from behind her ear. Broken glass and dropped bottles made a carpet around her.
The beast lifted its massive front paws and lunged at the car windscreen, bringing its full weight to bear against the glass. The car shook again under the impact, and the windscreen began to break, thin cracks stretching out across its surface like a cobweb.
Seth gibbered and wailed, spit flying from his open lips, his long brown hair completely shielding his eyes.
Chris stared at the beast in awe. The werewolf was much more real in the flesh than his graphs and data had ever suggested. It was nothing like the blurry photos he had collected and collated from social media. It was far bigger, stronger and more terrifying than anything he had imagined. The animal raged and howled before him, shaking its great head from side to side as it fought to break into the car. Its power seemed overwhelming.
Yet Chris had trained himself for this. His running, his weight lifting, his martial arts practice had all been for this moment. He knew what must be done.
Lycanthropic (Book 1): Wolf Blood Page 31