The leopard hadn’t moved from the doorway. He stood there, framed between a pair of pillars, the white of his coat seeming to glow in the light. He glanced across at me as though confused by his surroundings. The lay-out of the benches was clearly something alien to him and he pondered how he was going to progress.
He came forward with extreme caution and rested a huge paw on one of the benches. It wobbled slightly and the leopard regarded it with a strange kind of wonder. Withdrawing his paw, he inched forward inspecting the space between the pews with absolute gravity. He then attempted to squeeze his head between the uprights, moving so carefully that his features adopted a look of absolute sweetness. But still he was prevented from progressing, the flimsy uprights preventing him from edging through. In frustration, he tried to pull himself up onto one of the benches, but it swayed so much that he relented, easing himself back down.
I felt perplexed by my predicament. He might not be able to come over the benches but he was more than capable of coming the long way around. If I stayed where I was then I would be safe but, if I decided to move, he would quickly out-flank me.
So I stayed where I was, catching my breath, the stillness of the walls feeding off the silence that followed. Things would be fine so long as I didn’t force the creature to react.
A pair of glass vestibule doors stood about fifteen metres away and beyond these, contained within a large archway, were the wooden outer doors. These were stoutly made and gave the impression of being locked. What would be the point of racing down there if I couldn’t get them open? What then?
I was considering my options when a noise broke the silence.
The sound of shrieking.
Two girls, both blonde, chased each other out of the vestry over on the left of the altar and ran over to the other side. The girls were very young, the youngest no more than five, the other just a couple of years older. Their colouring suggested that they might be sisters but I couldn’t be sure.
The youngest ran as far as a tall display of lilies and then stopped, waiting for the other to catch up. When she did, the little one grabbed her around the legs and tried to lift her off the ground.
Behind me, I felt the leopard’s attention shift. A prickle of alarm made the hairs on my neck bristle.
The impulse for survival sharpens everything to a single focus and at the centre of mine were those two girls. The smaller one struggled to lift the larger, failed then tried again. When that didn’t work she gave voice to her frustration.
When I chanced to look over at the leopard I saw how its shoulders had hunched forward. There is a directness around large animals which mocks the old lie that man is the ultimate predator and I felt this now as the leopard shifted its weight, its neck lengthening in expectation.
Those girls were going to die swiftly and terribly if I didn’t act but I struggled to come up with an appropriate plan.
Then, before I had a chance to change my mind, I stepped down into the aisle. The younger girl looked over in my direction. I waved at her to come over, not daring to call out but she stayed where she was.
What to do next? I needed the girls to come to me, they appeared completely unaware of the shape lurking in the aisle and, for the time being, that could only be a good thing. If they were to see it and panic then there was no telling what might happen. Added to this was the fact that there had to be an adult with them somewhere. I very much doubted that the two girls lived in the church. They probably belonged to one of the cleaners to be in at this hour. Whoever it was I just needed them to stay out of sight for the time being. Things were complicated enough.
I desperately needed to get the girls’ attention. I looked along the pews in the hope of spotting something: a discarded soft toy or colourful reading book. There was nothing.
Then I remembered my bike light. I fished it out of my pocket and switched it on. My intention had been to simply flash it in the girls’ faces but my thumb was ahead of me, cycling through the range of settings until it came to ‘strobe.’ The younger girl viewed me with suspicion but the older girl had no such reservations and moved quickly down the aisle.
The sudden movement didn’t go unnoticed by the leopard who had started moving up the side of the church, his progress largely obscured by the pillars. When the younger girl followed her companion down the church, the leopard let out a rumbling purr.
As the first girl approached she started to slow down, suddenly wary. She held out her hand for the torch. I squatted down in order to appear less threatening. At first she hesitated, turning to look back up towards the altar. The younger girl had no such inhibitions. She ran swiftly down the aisle past her companion, came straight up to me and grabbed the torch. When she held it up to examine it, she shone the light straight into her eyes. Startled, she dropped it. The older girl, having been beaten to the prize the first time, didn’t hesitate to snatch it up.
Holding it straight out from her body she wheeled around, the torch illuminating the shadows and, for the briefest of moments, it picked out the leopard.
A bellowing roar reverberated around the church and we all froze.
“Where’s your mummy?” I whispered.
“Flowers,” the little girl said. “Mummy’s got the flowers.”
That made sense
I took hold of the oldest girl’s hand. The other girl was slightly too far back and I didn’t want to risk lunging for her. If everything else failed then I’d have to pick them up and run for it. But I didn’t fancy my chances with that.
The older girl looked up at me, “Are you going to help mummy?”
“Perhaps later.”
The leopard had turned and was moving back down the church. It moved confidently - no need to rush.
I took a step backwards, unsure what to do next. The leopard was nearly parallel with me now. If I sprinted towards the glass doors there was a chance that I could get there first because the animal would be forced to negotiate the corner. But I wouldn’t be doing any sprinting carrying two little girls.
They didn’t say anything just stayed with me, the older girl swinging the torch beam back and forth their view of the animal obscured by the line of pews. The leopard moved with practiced ease, its neck craning round, its blunt snout tracking our progress.
I scooped up the smaller of the two girls just as I saw the vestry door swing open. A woman in her twenties stepped through, her hair under a grey bobble hat. All of her concentration focussed on the two glass jugs she was carrying.
She turned her head as she searched for the girls. She stopped what she was doing when she caught sight of me: the stranger holding her daughters.
CHAPTER TWO
“Can I help you?” she was already looking for a place to rest the jugs.
It didn’t look good but I didn’t know what else to do. I daren’t put the young girl down but the older one, seeing her mother, was twisting away from me. But I had to keep them with me for the time being. If all else failed, I had a gun. It wasn’t much but it might well prove the deciding factor in whether any of us managed to survive this.
The mother stopped dead, her eyes growing impossibly wide as she caught sight of the leopard.
I gritted my teeth and nodded, casting my eyes in the animal’s direction. The leopard stretched its mouth wide in a protracted yawn.
I released my grip on the older girl’s hand before immediately grabbing her by the wrist. She tried to pull away but I had a firm grip on her now.
The mother stood completely still, her mind struggling to comprehend what it was that was that she was seeing. She still held both jugs of water.
If I could get her out of the way then I could concentrate on saving the girls, but I knew how strong a mother’s maternal instincts could be. I had to distract her – give her something to do. An important job perhaps?
I dropped my head down level with the little girl’s ear. “What’s mummy’s name?”
“Mummy.”
Obviously.
/> I had to raise my voice just to get the woman’s attention. “Do you have a phone?”
She nodded. “Back in the vestry.”
“Then I need you to do something for me: I need you to ring the police.”
She thought about putting the jugs down – decided against it.
“What should I say?”
“You’ll think of something.”
“But the girls?” she said flatly.
I felt terrible using the Glamour spell but, by that stage, I had no other choice. The effect was instantaneous. She drew back her head, gazing at me with fresh eyes.
“They’ll be safe,” I said. “Now go. And be sure to give them this address.”
Her eyes couldn’t settle on one thing but kept moving and moving, a sign of her inner struggle: she knew that something wasn’t right but just couldn’t work out what. The spell would make it almost impossible for her to disobey me. But it was her water jugs which seemed to present her with the greatest dilemma. She stared at them as if they might be permanently attached, her expression fixed yet attentive.
When she next looked at me I just smiled and nodded, eager to reassure her. I wanted her to think that she could have a positive impact on the situation. But, in reality, that was looking less and less likely. We were in the realm of damage limitation.
But no good would be served if the two girls had to stand and watch their mother being torn apart.
I turned my attention to the dark shape over against the far wall, partially obscured now by the pillars on that side but totally fixed on the mother, its breathing coming in ragged gasps.
The mother took a step backwards, the water slopping over the floor, and I felt the older girl stiffen. I was worried that she was going to shout out, to call to her mother but she didn’t. She just stood and watched her mother re-trace her steps back to the vestry.
I hitched the little girl up on my hip and thought about using the distraction provided by the mother in order to edge a little closer to the doors. I tried to estimate how much further I had to go. Ten metres, maybe a little more, but the leopard’s head was already tracking back around in our general direction, eyeing us eagerly.
An itchiness had started to work its way between my shoulders. If we stayed where we were then the leopard would simply outflank us. The younger girl had remained strangely inert throughout this but there was a good reason for that. From her vantage point she had a good view of the creature whilst her sister’s view was blocked by the pews.
I started making towards the glass doors. I didn’t know what else to do. The leopard started to move in the same direction and quickly reached the end of the aisle. From there it would only be a matter of moments before it was able to block our path. The only thing that might give us an advantage was the gun I still carried in my bag.
The good news was that it was loaded with silver bullets – the only thing capable of stopping a shape-shifter.
The bad news was that there were only two bullets.
And, I was going to need both hands free if I was going to shoot straight. I released my grip on the older girl and pointed in the direction of the vestry.
“Go to mummy!” I whispered. “I’ll bring your sister.”
It took her a few seconds for her to process what I was saying. She turned her big eyes in my direction trying to gauge whether I was being serious then took a few tenuous steps backwards. Next thing, she was charging up the aisle in a stilted, loping run.
But I didn’t have the time to watch her reach safety. I reached into my bag with my free hand and slowly started to turn around. The leopard was already in front of the doors. The gun came clear of my bag and I quickly took aim at the leopard’s head. I didn’t want to have to shoot it, but I was fast running out of options.
At the sight of the gun, the animal let out a deep-throated growl which sounded like shifting stones. I only had two shots left.
I was going to have to make each one count.
I became aware of my own breathing as my finger closed around the trigger. I twisted my hips, taking special care to shield the girl with my body. Much of me - very nearly all of me - wanted to pull that trigger right then. My body yearned for that sense of release. But my body still held fast to the idea that there might still be another way. Because deep down, I recognised this leopard. Or rather, I recognised the man it had once been.
Terence.
And I still hoped that I might be able to influence some small part of him that hadn’t yet been subsumed by his primal instincts.
What was it that Silas had said? We are all animals. Humanity is just a daily aspiration.
I had let Terence down. I had embarked on this enterprise without a plan, blinded by my determination to find Silas. I had thought that somehow just seeing me would be enough to bring him to his senses. Now I realised how ridiculous that sounded.
The leopard, sensing my indecision, lowered its head and regarded me with those inscrutable green eyes. Its weight shifted onto its front paws.
I adjusted my hold on the girl so that she was sitting squarely over my hip and chanced a look back down the church. There was no sign of her sister. The vestry door stood was shut. Then I noticed movement over to my right.
The man appeared from behind the altar. There must have been a side door there and I thought for a second that he might be the vicar: he looked bearded and serious.
He raised a hand as if trying to attract my attention but he wasn’t looking at me. A golden luminescence was building in his palm, thickening until it was too bright to look at. Then he eased his hand back and the light changed, absorbing everything around it so that it glowed a kind of bluey green. As he held it like that an unearthly noise built up, a kind of buzzing which reverberated around the church.
The leopard was momentarily distracted and that’s when I decided to move.
Dropping the gun back in my bag, I wrapped both arms around the girl and started running.
The bearded figure snapped his arm forward releasing a blinding, bewildering surge of energy which snaked towards us. I felt the surge of heat fly past my face before exploding somewhere behind me. Even with my back to it, the intensity of the flash was still startling. For a second I could see the little girl’s skull as clearly as if viewing an X-ray.
The leopard cried out in pain.
I fixed my sights on the door to the vestry and sprinted towards that, the girl bouncing about on my hip.
By the time I reached the door, the mother had it open. I thrust her daughter clumsily into her arms and pulled the door shut.
From there, my view of the rest of the church was largely obscured by the row of pillars but I could still make out the leopard’s hind-quarters. His tail was lashing back and forth and he was making an awful sawing noise, filled with anguish and rage.
Directly across from me, the bearded magician looked composed; calm even. Whatever spell he had marshalled against the creature had been enough to stop it in its tracks and I could still feel the heat of it warming my face.
There was a stone pillar just in front of me and I peeked around it in an attempt to get a better look at what was happening. The leopard had stopped halfway up the church, it’s head low to the floor it’s ears swept back. It was moving slowly, its back legs tense. I’d seen it do that once before: it was preparing to pounce.
The bearded man advanced, stepping down into the aisle. A thin wisp of luminescence swirled around his fist though it was nothing like as vibrant as it had been earlier. Had he over reached himself with that first spell? It was a common enough mistake.
I could see the leopard gathering itself a mere ten metres away.
The silence was destroyed by a huge explosion at the far end of the church. A ball of orange flame shattering the glass doors into a million pieces. The noise of the blast reverberated off the walls as the far end of the church was obscured by a growing yellow haze. Through the dust I could dimly make out the main doors hanging by their hinges as h
elmeted figures flooded in.
The men started firing controlled bursts in the direction of the leopard but what surprised me was their effect. I’d seen this creature shrug off small arms fire before but this time it was different. I could hear the unmistakeable sound of bullets punching into meat and the leopard’s cries told me that they were hitting home.
That could only mean one thing: silver bullets.
They’d come prepared.
The creature thrashed backwards and forwards in an attempt to protect itself from the ferocity of the assault but it made no difference. This was a well organised group and they had the leopard firmly on the back-foot.
The bearded magician was nowhere to be seen. He had done his job, distracting the animal away from the real offensive before slipping quietly away.
The men started to press forward attempting to capitalise on their surprise attack. Except that the leopard - which had looked to be close to collapse - wasn’t finished. As a figure in bullet-proof Kevlar attempted to flank it, the creature lashed out sending him sprawling amongst the pews.
This act was greeted with a ferocious burst of gunfire which pulled the leopard’s body out of shape, as though caught in a threshing machine. It drew itself up to its full height one last time and then, suddenly, it was over. The silence which followed was far more painful than anything that had gone before and I just stood there, my cheek pressed against the cold stone, unable to remember how all this had come about.
When I finally staggered out from behind the pillar I saw that the men had gathered to scrutinise the body, their assault rifles slung at their waists, their goggles pulled down around their throats. They were looking at the misshapen heap of white fur which lay at their feet.
Bitter Moon Page 2