Midnight Smoke (The Firebrand Series Book 3)

by Helen Harper

  Okay. This was crazy. But okay. ‘Any word on what clan the wolves are from?’

  The police officer goggled at me. ‘How would we know that?’

  They wouldn’t necessarily, but werewolves were loyal creatures. There was no chance that any of them had made a move like this unless it had already been sanctioned by their clan alpha. And, nutty as the four alphas were, I couldn’t for the life of me imagine why any of them would have thought that bringing central London to a halt was a good idea.

  ‘Has anyone contacted the clan alphas?’ I asked.

  ‘We thought you might do that.’

  ‘Uh huh.’ I nodded. ‘Any word on the wolves’ rankings? Did anyone spot any coloured tags on their arms before they transformed?’

  He shook his head slowly. He was about as much use as a one-legged man in an arse-kicking contest.

  There was a sudden commotion behind us from the police line. I turned and spotted Fred, who was waving his arms frantically in my direction. Finally, someone who could provide me with real back-up. I nodded at him. ‘Let him through,’ I instructed.

  The police officer raised a hand and Fred was ushered over. ‘Which clan are these idiots from?’ he asked urgently.

  ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘Has anyone spoken to the alphas?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Do we know their ranks?’

  I smiled slightly. ‘No.’ I passed him my phone. ‘Get onto all four clan alphas straight away. Find out who these idiots are and which bastard ordered them to create this kind of havoc.’ I paused. ‘Start with Lady Sullivan.’

  While I was currently on speaking terms with the Sullivan clan alpha, she was the most reckless. She’d once even tried to have me killed so she could examine my resurrections for herself. I guessed that she was the likeliest candidate for this kind of tomfoolery. If she’d sanctioned this attack, then her days were numbered. The public tolerated the supernatural community as long as they kept to their corner of London and didn’t bother everyone else. Hijacking a damned tourist bus was not in that remit.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Fred asked.

  I bared my teeth in a nasty grin. ‘I’ll get closer and try to talk to these numbskulls,’ I said. ‘If they’re low-ranking enough, I might manage to compel them to back down.’ I crossed my fingers. It would be good to end this farce without any shots being fired.

  I held my crossbow loosely at my side to indicate that I wouldn’t aim or fire unless I had to, then I moved slowly towards the bus. Every eye was on me – and probably several cameras too. I didn’t think about them as I focused on the bus. I could make out the flickering shapes of a few shadows inside, and every few moments a head bobbed up to stare at me. Judging by the long ears, the wolves were still in animal form.

  When I reached the first armed officer, he pointed at a megaphone. I considered it for a moment then picked it up. ‘This is Detective Constable Emma Bellamy,’ my voice boomed out across the bridge. ‘You know who I am. You will stand down, return to human form and leave the bus immediately.’

  Every word thrummed with power and I could feel the compulsion I’d injected into my command reverberating through my body. I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed that the megaphone amplified my power as well as my voice. I couldn’t always compel supes to do my bidding; usually I needed their real names to boost my power and force them to my will. However, if the supes were weak enough, I could do it without their names.

  I held my breath and waited, hoping that I’d done enough. When there was no immediate response from inside the bus, I cursed under my breath. Okay. If the mountain wouldn’t come to Mahomet, Mahomet would go to the mountain.

  I dropped the megaphone and walked forward. I was getting onto that bus.

  ‘DC Bellamy!’ one of the armed officers hissed. I glanced at him. ‘Protocol demands that no move is made to approach a hijacked vehicle until all other avenues have been explored.’

  ‘That protocol is for humans,’ I replied, ‘not for werewolves. Waiting them out might work in other circumstances, but wolves will react positively to a show of strength, not patience.’ I gave him a look. ‘You called me here for a reason. I know what I’m doing, trust me.’ Then I continued walking towards the bus.

  I’d barely covered ten feet when there was a flurry of movement behind the grubby windows. I stopped. Excellent. I waited two beats, then the bus door opened. But the person who stepped out, fear written all over his face, wasn’t a wolf.

  ‘Don’t shoot!’ he yelled in what sounded like a Kiwi accent. ‘Please don’t shoot!’ He stumbled forward onto the road and the bus door closed again.

  My eyes narrowed.

  ‘Put your hands on your head!’ shouted the same officer who’d tried to stop me.

  The man did as he was told and staggered forward, his face paper white. I checked his clothes: khaki shorts, sandals and the bulge of a money belt round his waist. He was definitely a tourist. As soon as he reached the first police car about fifty metres from the bus, he gasped. One of the armed officers sprang up, grabbed him and hauled him behind the car.

  I wasted no time in joining them and the three of us crouched behind the car. The officer took up position again, the muzzle of his government-issue gun pointing at the bus. I focused on the escapee. He was wheezing and his eyes were writhing wildly with panic.

  I placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Breathe,’ I commanded. ‘In.’ He heaved in a breath. ‘Out.’ He gasped. ‘In. Out.’

  He did as he was told. His body shaking beneath my hand but slowly the tremors started to subside. ‘You’re safe now,’ I said. Then my voice hardened. I needed him to talk. ‘Tell me what’s going on inside that bus.’

  ‘Three,’ he said. ‘Three werewolves.’

  ‘Did you see them transform? Did you see what they looked like before they turned?’

  He shook his head. ‘I was upstairs – we all were. They must have changed before they came up top. I didn’t see them when they got on board.’ He reached into his pocket with a shaking hand and held out a sheet of paper. There was a message scrawled messy handwriting.

  I read it aloud: ‘We have six hostages. Stay back or we will eat them. We will present our demands in one hour. Be ready.’ I frowned and looked at the man. ‘One of the wolves wrote this?’

  ‘I…’ The man looked at me helplessly. ‘I think so. One of them gave it to me and shoved me out of the door.’

  No werewolf in animal form could write; their paws didn’t allow for that sort of dexterity. ‘They’re still all wolves?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘They’re still furry?’

  He looked confused. ‘Yes.’

  They could have prepared the note before they got on board, but how would they have known how many hostages they’d end up with? Buses like this one were hop-on and hop-off, so sometimes they were empty and sometimes every seat was filled. It didn’t compute. And I’d never heard of a werewolf wanting to eat a human. All the ones I knew preferred burgers, usually with lashings of tomato ketchup.

  I scratched my head. First that vampire on the London Eye and now this. ‘Describe them to me. Describe the wolves.’

  He stared at me like he didn’t understand the question. ‘They have brown fur. And big teeth. And they smell musty.’

  Musty? I frowned.

  ‘One of them had blue eyes,’ the man supplied helpfully.

  My body tensed. Werewolf eyes changed colour to yellow or occasionally green when their bodies transformed. Never blue.

  ‘Cavalry’s here,’ I heard someone mutter.

  I glanced back and saw Fred at the far end of the bridge. Four identical black cars had pulled up – the alphas had arrived. The doors opened and the familiar figures of Lady Sullivan, Lady Carr, Lord McGuigan and Lord Fairfax stepped out. They were too far away for me to decipher their expressions, but they were all standing stiffly and staring at the bus.

  I abandoned the man, stood up and marched towa
rds them. Fred was already trying to talk to them but they were paying him little attention. Their focus was on the bus.

  ‘Those cannot be my wolves,’ Lady Sullivan said as I approached.

  ‘Well, they’re not from my clan,’ Fairfax snapped.

  Lord McGuigan folded his arms. ‘Or mine.’

  Lady Carr glanced at the other female clan leader. ‘You are the only alpha with form for this type of action. Our wolves are accounted for.’

  ‘You know what this means,’ McGuigan snarled. ‘The Sullivan Clan is officially dead. The humans will never stand for this! All the diplomacy and plea bargaining in the world won’t let you off the hook this time.’ He looked at me. ‘We are innocent of this, DC Bellamy. You cannot tar every werewolf clan with the same brush. This is not our crime.’

  ‘They are not my wolves!’ The strain in Lady Sullivan’s voice was unusual.

  I pulled back my shoulders. ‘Get in your cars and get back to Lisson Grove. Now,’ I ordered

  ‘What?’ Lord Fairfax jerked. ‘You can’t make us do that. If werewolves are holding a bunch of humans hostage, we have a right to be here. You might be powerful, DC Bellamy, but you’re no wolf.’

  ‘Neither,’ I said, ‘are any of the people on that bus.’

  Every pair of eyes blinked at me. ‘What?’

  ‘I might still be relatively new at all of this,’ I said, ‘but I know that no group of werewolves would do this unless they were under your orders. One lone wolf might be this stupid but not three together. And looking at you lot, it’s obvious that none of you ordered it. You know what the consequences would be if you did and you’re not that reckless.’

  ‘Damn fucking right,’ the petite Lady Carr muttered.

  ‘Less than an hour ago,’ I continued, ‘a vampire was perched on top of the London Eye. Now three werewolves have hijacked a bus. Lord Horvath left Soho to deal with the vamp. You left Lisson Grove to deal with this.’ I shook my head. ‘These aren’t real incidents, they’re diversions. Someone is trying to distract you. I reckon that when the bus is stormed, it won’t be three werewolves in there – it’ll be three idiots in fancy-dress costumes pretending to be wolves.’

  ‘What?’ McGuigan’s mouth dropped open. ‘Are you sure?’

  Not entirely, but I hoped I was right. A musty smell? A scribbled note? Blue eyes? Tourists wouldn’t necessarily know what a real werewolf looked like, and fear could make you believe just about anything – even that someone in a costume was actually a supernatural creature.

  ‘Why would someone want us out of Lisson Grove?’ Lady Sullivan asked. ‘If this is a distraction, what is it distracting us from?’

  ‘I don’t—’

  A voice on Fred’s radio, which was clipped to his belt, interrupted. ‘I’m getting some reports of a robbery under way.’ It was Liza, calling in from the office. ‘At the Talismanic Bank on Grosvenor Street.’

  Carr and McGuigan were running for their cars before she’d finished her sentence.

  Fred stared at me. ‘Shit.’

  ‘That’s my bank,’ Fairfax whispered. He spun away.

  ‘It’s the bank we all use.’ Lady Sullivan’s jaw clenched. ‘It’s the bank the vampires use, too.’ She glanced at the bus once more, her expression contorting. Her eyes had narrowed to slits and a dangerous yellow sheen was rolling across her irises. I glanced down and noted the fur springing out across the back of her hands and the sharp claws. Then she also turned and ran for her car.

  Fred rubbed his forehead. ‘All this is about a bank robbery? What the fuck? What do we do?’

  ‘We get to the Talismanic Bank,’ I said. ‘Now.’

  Chapter Four

  Under normal circumstances I could have driven from Tower Bridge to the bank in less than twenty minutes but there’d been an accident on the main road. Ambulances, police cars and several diversions forced me to detour and I arrived far later than I’d intended, frustration boiling inside me.

  I ignored the parking restrictions and pulled up Tallulah directly outside the bank before jumping out and heading in through the grand front doors.

  The Talismanic Bank had been established for centuries. It was held in high esteem across the world. Unusually, it remained untouched by the disasters that befell other banks; as far as the Talismanic Bank was concerned, another financial crash was simply another day at the office. There were only six branches – New York, Beijing, Rio De Janeiro, Lagos, Sydney and, of course, London. Antarctica was the only continent it didn’t cover.

  Not anyone could stroll in and open an account. To be a client, you had to be a supe: vampire, werewolf or Other. Humans could wander in and have a look around the famous building but they weren’t allowed to conduct business with the Talismanic Bank. That was as a result of the bank’s own rules, nobody else’s.

  The London branch was located smack bang in the centre of the city between Soho, where the vamps resided, and Lisson Grove where the wolves were. As the crow flies, it was only half a mile from the Supe Squad office, although the busy London streets and one-way systems meant that getting there from my workplace took longer than it should have done.

  The bank was an enormous building made out of Portland Stone. It had massive pillars and elaborately carved gargoyles and grotesques on the outside, and high-ceilinged rooms, steel-lined vaults and dramatic interiors inside. There was so much art hanging on its walls that it occasionally gave guided tours. I had never darkened its door before now. Gazing round the destruction on the ground floor, I wished I didn’t have to do so now.

  All four clan alphas and Lukas were already there. My feet crunched on the shattered glass that covered the elaborate mosaic floor. Several of the stained-glass windows had been shot out, as well as the glass that fronted the bank tellers’ booths. I doubted the bank’s administrators had expected that anyone would dare to attack them and had never upgraded to bulletproof versions.

  ‘Two bank employees are dead,’ Lukas told me grimly. ‘And five customers – four wolves and a pixie. There are also two dead humans. One was killed on the steps outside and one in here.’

  I looked at him sharply. ‘Is there any indication that any of the victims were with the bank robbers?’

  ‘Not so far – most of the dead were customers. The human outside seems to have been an unlucky bystander, and the human inside appears to have ventured inside for a quick gawk. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ Darkness flickered across his face. ‘Everyone was.’

  I swivelled round, sick to my stomach. From the amount of blood I’d expected worse, but it was still a desperately high body count. The supernatural community would feel the effects of this for years to come.

  ‘Did they get away with anything?’ I asked. Surely the security in a place like this would be ridiculously high? It was impossible to believe that anyone could gain access to the vaults and make off with wads of supernatural cash.

  A tall man, with a body so thin it was almost skeletal, walked towards us. I looked him up and down. Since I’d been fooled into believing the worst of the ghouls while investigating the gruesome disappearance of a body from a grave, I’d improved my knowledge of the Others. The number of supernatural species who were not wolves or vamps was tiny, but that didn’t make them less important.

  I knew without asking that this man was a goblin. Caricatures made by humans usually portrayed them as squat, chubby creatures with avaricious temperaments. In reality, they tended to be quiet, thoughtful beings who were marked by their green eyes and gold-tinged skin. Most lived in mainland Europe, but a hundred or so resided in London. I already knew that this particular goblin was Mosburn Pralk, Moss to his friends. It wasn’t his real name; as far as I was aware, not even his wife knew his real name. That was the price you paid when you were bank manager for virtually every supe in Europe.

  There was a small cut on his cheek below his left eye but otherwise he appeared unharmed. He folded his bony hands together and regarded us solemnly. ‘They
stormed inside and shut off the power at the circuit box. That caused our back-up security system to kick in, and half the doors in the building locked automatically as a result. I was upstairs in my office. By the time I managed to over-ride the system and get down here, the robbers were already leaving.’

  ‘Did you get a look at any of them? Did anyone see their faces?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, they were wearing masks. Of course, we have CCTV footage but I’m not sure what good it will do.’ He gestured helplessly. ‘We don’t know if they were supes or humans.’

  Lukas leaned forward, his black eyes inscrutable. ‘DC Bellamy was enquiring about what was stolen.’

  Pralk’s skin took on an ashen tone. ‘You’d better come with me and see for yourselves.’

  We trooped through the destroyed room, following in Mosburn Pralk’s wake. I noted several bodies, none of which were covered. Two dead werewolves lay in the centre of the bank’s main hall and the third was near the exit, as if he’d either been trying to escape or had come in as the shooting started.

  I looked away from the unnatural angle of the body of one of the golden-skinned bank employees, then the pixie’s corpse drew my gaze. She was lying on her front with her arm outstretched towards the front door, as if she were reaching for it.

  The robbers didn’t have to kill so many people. Chilled, I wondered if it had been part of their plan from the beginning. Everything about today seemed designed to throw us off balance and these deaths compounded that feeling.

  ‘I’m afraid it wasn’t money they were after,’ Pralk said. ‘Not in the first instance, anyway. The vaults are on a timer, and our insurance would have more than covered any losses. And as I said, the power cut caused most of other doors to lock automatically. But not all of them.’ He spoke stiffly and I could tell that he took the robbery as a personal attack. The bank was his baby; no doubt he had sacrificed a great deal to rise to his current position. Whether he would still be manager this time tomorrow was another question.