Camwolf

by J. L. Merrow

  The kitchen showed definite signs of occupancy. Carrier bags littered the floor, some empty, some full of foul-smelling rubbish. Cans of food stood upon worktops next to large bottles of supermarket mineral water. Here and there, as he turned his head, Nick was sure he caught Julian’s scent. It was faint, very faint. But it was here. Julian was here.

  Or had been. Nick’s heart lurched at the thought that he might be… No. He was here, and Nick was going to find him. Was going to take him back from that bastard Schräger. Nick swallowed at the thought of what that might mean. Should he have brought some kind of weapon? Unfortunately this wasn’t the kind of kitchen that came equipped with a handy knife block. Not that Nick would have had the first idea how to fight with a knife in any case.

  He moved on, straining his ears for any slight sound that might alert him to where Julian was—or whether his intrusion had been detected. The faintness of the scents suggested no one was on the ground floor, but Nick’s throat was still tight as he crept round half-open doors to the deserted rooms beyond. It was almost pitch black in the house, barely a trace of the streetlamps outside seeming to penetrate the boarded windows. Nick used his key-ring torch cautiously, weighing the chance of being seen against the likelihood of him blundering in the dark.

  But all was empty.

  Nick began to fear he’d got here too late, that Schräger had somehow got wind of his discovery—how, he couldn’t imagine—and had decamped elsewhere. He stood by the staircase for a moment, undecided as to whether he should go up. The dust and grime on the stairs appeared undisturbed in the feeble light of his torch, and he was almost certain the scent was actually weaker here.

  As he hesitated, he realised there was one door he had yet to check. It looked like a cupboard—could Julian be bundled up in there? Christ, it must be like being in a coffin. His mouth dry, Nick tried the door handle slowly, alert for any sign that it was about to screech and betray him. The door opened soundlessly, thank God, and a queasy mix of scents greeted Nick’s nostrils. One of them made his breath catch in his throat and his heart leap in his chest. Julian. He was here, Nick was certain of it. The other—Nick could barely restrain the snarl that rose in his throat. It was the wolf from Coe Fen.

  Nick found himself at the top of a flight of concrete stairs. He’d forgotten old houses like this sometimes had a cellar. Faint yellowish light reached up around a third of the way from a room below, but the angle was all wrong and it showed him nothing but a bare stone wall.

  He didn’t need to see. He could smell that his mate was here.

  Every instinct screaming at him to leap to the attack, Nick made himself tread slowly, quietly down the stairs. He could hear a voice speaking softly, and although he couldn’t make out the words, he could tell that they were in German and they sounded like words of comfort.

  Relief flooded through him. Herrscher had got here before him, and Julian was safe now. “Julian!” he called, abandoning stealth and hurtling towards the sound of the voice.

  It wasn’t Herrscher.

  It was a man he’d never seen before, but Nick didn’t have a lot of attention to spare for him, as his eyes were transfixed by the sight of Julian, laid out face-down on a low camp bed.

  Naked. And with fresh marks on his back—Christ, what had that bastard done to him? Blood was seeping slowly down Julian’s side, a trickle of it falling to pool on the rough blanket on which he lay. Bruises, looking horribly like finger marks, mottled his hips, and he was filthy. He looked up at the sound of Nick’s voice, his eyes dull and empty, made hollower by the shadows cast by the camping lamp that was the only source of illumination in the cellar.

  A snarl forced Nick’s attention to the stocky, dark man crouching at Julian’s side. Schräger, his mind supplied clinically. That must be Schräger, and Nick was going to kill him.

  He launched himself at the man, succeeding in getting his hands around an unshaven throat that deformed and grew under his fingers, loosening his grip. Schräger’s whole body was writhing, changing—and suddenly Nick found himself face to face with a full-grown wolf, its teeth like ivory daggers and its breath like an abattoir. Instinctively Nick re-tightened his grip upon Schräger’s throat, pushing the wolf away as it snarled and tried to tear at his face.

  “Nick!” Julian’s voice was high, panicked. “You have to change!”

  Easy for him to say. It was taking all Nick’s strength to keep the wolf’s jaws away from his face, his throat. If he relaxed his grip for one instant…

  He didn’t have a choice. Sooner or later, his grip would weaken and that would be the end of it. He’d be dead, and Julian would belong to that bastard forever. Nick’s arms were beginning to shake as those vicious jaws snapped ever closer. He had to use it—use the pain, the fear, the fierce desperation to reclaim his mate. He fixed his gaze on his enemy’s maddened eyes. There was nothing human there at all. Only wolf. Nick felt his own teeth bare, mirroring the usurper’s snarl. He let the rage flood through him, let it change him.

  This time, the pain felt right.

  The few heartbeats the transformation took meant that by the time he was fully wolf, Schräger’s jaws were on his throat. Adrenaline powering his muscles, Nick jerked away, shaking off his attacker. Schräger rolled, circled for a moment—then lunged at him once more, his muzzle flecked with Nick’s blood. Nick leapt to one side. Not fast enough. Schräger’s claws raked his right flank, the pain like a red-hot knife slicing through his flesh. Julian was watching, wide-eyed, a momentary distraction. Focus. The other wolf was bigger, more experienced. But not invulnerable. Nick had to turn the tide of this fight, and quickly. He leapt.

  Schräger had been waiting for it. He rolled to the side, taking Nick with him. The jaws closed on Nick’s throat again, more tightly this time, the pain blinding him. Nick’s frantic struggles were useless. Those fierce teeth only bit the harder as he wrestled vainly to dislodge them. He was going to lose this fight, to die, and his mate would be the spoils. His vision fading, Nick roused himself to make one final effort to be free. But he wasn’t strong enough, and the iron grasp of those powerful jaws on his throat did not lessen. Blood pounding in his temples, Nick’s rage turned to desperation.

  Suddenly, the agony lessened, and his vision began to clear. A smaller wolf—his mate—had its teeth into one of Schräger’s hind legs. Schräger yelped in pain, and his grasp on Nick’s throat loosened. Exultation firing him, a new burst of adrenaline spurring him on, Nick wrenched himself from Schräger’s grip and sank his teeth into that hairy throat. Blood gushed into his mouth, hot and rich and intoxicating. Nick bit down hard with savage satisfaction—and then twisted, pulling away.

  Half of Schräger’s throat came with him. Drenched in a cascade of thick red blood, Nick watched, jubilant, as the dark eyes dulled, and the beast slumped to the floor. He backed away a pace, panting, alert for any further threat to his dominance. There was another wolf here. Nick snarled at it, challenging, and it cowered, belly low, whimpering slightly. Appeasing him. Nick’s hackles lowered and, as the wolf’s scent reached him over the heady stench of his defeated foe, his tail began to fall. It was his mate. Julian, he remembered dimly, even as he howled his triumph to the world.

  Suddenly his senses sounded the alert. Another challenger. Nick’s muzzle snapped towards the door. Another wolf stood there, and this one did not cower. Growling, his hackles raised, Nick took a step forward, placing himself between the interloper and the wolf that was his.

  The challenger surveyed the scene, its scent tantalizingly familiar. His wolf—Julian, the part of Nick that was human supplied—whimpered again. And all at once, the challenger turned and walked away. No longer threatened, Nick started to come back to himself. The challenger—that must have been Julian’s father. Herrscher.

  Julian. Nick morphed back into his human form. The wreckage of his clothing still clinging to him, he hurried over to the young wolf and tentatively caressed him. The wolf shuddered, and abruptly Nick’s arms w
ere full of a naked, filthy, blood-smeared young man who clung to him convulsively.

  “Shh,” he whispered. “It’s all right. He’s gone now.” Nick forced himself to look at the wolf’s bloody corpse. You did that, he told himself, only half believing it now he was human once more. You killed him. Aloud, he couldn’t help saying wonderingly “I thought he’d turn back.”

  There was a stifled sob in the region of his chest. Concerned, Nick cupped Julian’s face in his hands. There were traces of Schräger’s blood around his mouth. What the hell Nick himself looked like he couldn’t imagine. “Julian?”

  “He’s dead, Nick. How can he transform when he’s dead?” The voice was shaky, near to hysteria.

  “We have to get you out of here,” Nick said, trying for firmness and very nearly succeeding.

  Julian shook his head. “No. We…” He swallowed. “We have to deal with that.”

  It was obvious what he was referring to, but Nick wondered what the hell dealing with it involved. “Why did your father leave?”

  Julian looked very vulnerable. “I don’t know. Perhaps…I don’t know.”

  Nick’s arms tightened around him, until he remembered the welts on Julian’s back. “God, I’m hurting you.”

  “No,” Julian whispered. “Don’t let go.”

  “We need to get you to a doctor,” Nick insisted.

  “No.” It was firmer than before. “It’s not safe.”

  “The boy is right.” Nick spun at the sound of Herrscher’s harsh voice. “There will be no doctor, no police.” Herrscher was in human form, now, entirely and unabashedly nude and flanked by his two equally naked minions.

  “The police are already involved,” Nick told him angrily. “It’s a bloody murder investigation, or hadn’t you heard?”

  “That is regrettable. But it can be dealt with. The boy will tell them he ran away from Schräger, and that no one else was involved.”

  “The boy has a name, damn you.” Nick realised he was snarling again.

  “Don’t,” Julian said weakly into his chest. “Don’t fight him, Nick, please.”

  “What about the young man who was killed?” Nick demanded. “What if they try to pin it on Julian?”

  Herrscher shrugged. “He will tell them Schräger is to blame. It will be assumed that he fled the country. They will search for a time, and then they will give up.”

  Nick struggled to think logically. “But Julian will have to tell them where he’s been, and they’ll come here…there must be all kinds of evidence they can find about what’s happened.”

  “This is an old house, I think?” Herrscher said calmly.

  Nick stared at him. “So?”

  “So it will burn well. Come, you must find clothes.”

  The only clothes in the place, of course, were Schräger’s. Nick fought the urge to throw up as he pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt that reeked of Julian’s rapist. As soon as they got back to Nick’s rooms he was lighting a bloody fire. And spending a week in the shower. Schräger hadn’t apparently thought it necessary to have the water reconnected, so they couldn’t even clean themselves off properly. Nick remembered the bottled water and did his best to wipe the blood off his hands and face.

  Throughout, Julian was unnervingly silent. He took the clothes Nick handed him and put them on without even seeming to see them.

  Did the smell of them revolt him too? Or was it—God, familiar? Comforting?

  Tight-lipped, Nick watched as Herrscher and his henchmen wrapped the wolf’s carcass in a blanket and carried it out of the cellar. He felt lightheaded and unreal and wondered if he was going into shock. He’d killed a man.

  No, what was it Markham had said? Schräger had been an animal. He’d needed to be put down. Clutching that thought to himself, Nick stood. “Come on, Julian. We need to get you home.”

  Herrscher looked up sharply. “You cannot return to your college in such a state. You must come with me to where I am staying.”

  Nick could feel the snarl that twisted his face. “No. No, I don’t think so. Julian is coming with me.”

  “You have blood all over you.” Herrscher’s voice was thick with derision. “You think you can just walk into your college like this?”

  “Nick?” Julian’s voice was still shaky. “We have to do what he says.”

  Nick felt, rather than heard, a low growling sound issue from his throat. He was damned if he’d do a thing Herrscher told him to. This was his territory, his pack.

  “Please?” Julian asked him.

  The appeal brought Nick back to himself. God, he was behaving like an animal. They were right. Where the hell could he go, looking like this? Back to college? To Nadia’s? He nodded at Herrscher, not trusting himself to speak.

  “Good. You have a car? We will use that.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sitting in the passenger seat of the Mini Cooper, the forlorn figure of Julian slumped in the back, Herrscher was entirely too close for comfort. For the first time, Nick gave serious thought to getting a bigger car. Herrscher directed him to a cottage in Fen Ditton, one of the villages a few miles out of town. It was set back from the road and shielded from view by a thick, tall hedge. Convenient. Nick wondered, as he got out of the Mini Cooper, just how many killings Herrscher had had occasion to cover up in the past. He seemed to be awfully good at it for a first attempt. “What will you do with the body?” he asked as they crunched up the gravel drive.

  “They will bury it. Far from here. After they have torched the house. You need not worry. Luther and Wahl are reliable.”

  Nick refrained from asking whether he’d used to say that about Schräger too.

  Herrscher unlocked the door and let them in, then led them straight up to the bathroom. “I will find you fresh clothes. There are towels on the rails.” He left them standing together, Julian with his eyes fixed on the tiled floor.

  “You can take first shower,” Nick said awkwardly. “I’ll wait outside.”

  Julian nodded jerkily without lifting his eyes. Should Nick offer to stay with him? Hold him? Or would he just want to be left alone? Julian didn’t say anything to contradict this last guess, so Nick turned and left the room. He closed the door behind him, and a few moments later heard the shower start.

  Solitude, Nick discovered, was not a good thing. With nothing now to distract him, he was hyper-aware of the crusted blood grown stiff upon his skin, the reek of Schräger’s clothes, the foul taste in his mouth. He fought the urge to retch over the banisters.

  Fortunately, Julian didn’t leave Nick pacing restlessly for long. He emerged from the bathroom mere minutes later, skin pink and hair plastered down to his skull. He was swathed in a large black bath towel that covered up the marks of his imprisonment. If imprisonment it had been; Nick couldn’t recall having seen any bars on the door or window.

  That kind of thought was not helping. Nick waited for Julian to pass and stepped wordlessly into the bathroom to finally rid himself of Schräger’s hated scent. Stepping into the shower, he turned the water as hot as it would go and closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see the rust-coloured water that streamed from his body and spiralled down the drain. He soaped himself several times over, desperate to clean away every taint, and didn’t stop until the water had started to run cold.

  By the time Nick had finished in the bathroom, Julian had disappeared and a set of clothing had appeared in his place, slung over the banisters. Nick donned them quickly, nose wrinkling at the unmistakeable smell of Herrscher, and made his way downstairs.

  Julian sat huddled in an armchair, the clothes he’d borrowed fitting him rather better than Nick might have expected. Not his father’s, then. Herrscher was ignoring his son in favour of the television, so Nick ignored him in turn and went to crouch down by Julian’s chair. “Are you all right?”

  Julian’s eyes stayed firmly upon his hands, which were kneading one another distractedly. “Yes.”

  Nick wanted to put an arm around
him, but wasn’t sure how it would be received. Julian’s whole posture seemed to scream “don’t touch me”. When Herrscher’s guttural voice broke in upon them, Julian started, and Nick felt a fresh surge of loathing for the man. “His mother will be here soon.”

  “His mother? Why?”

  “It will be better if he does not reappear with you. You do not, I think, wish for more questions from the police?”

  Nick suppressed a shudder at the thought of being interrogated by Detective Inspector Phillips when he really did have something to hide. “Fine. We’ll do it your way.” He turned back to Julian, softening his tone. “I’ll come and see you as soon as I can, all right?”

  Julian didn’t respond, unless you counted seeming to hunch even further into the chair. He wasn’t the only one to jump as the doorbell sounded.

  Nick stood as Herrscher showed the visitors in.

  “Julian!” Lili Markham’s soft voice broke on the last syllable as she flung her arms around her dazed-looking son.

  Markham’s gaze fell on Nick and he nodded to him, but said nothing. He stepped forward and placed a fatherly hand on Julian’s shoulder. Nick felt a savage satisfaction at Julian’s flinch, followed inevitably by a wash of self-loathing.

  “The boy will return with his mother,” Herrscher said in a tone that didn’t merely brook no dissent, it frankly refused to believe such a thing was even possible. Nick’s eyes happened to be on Lili, and he noticed a curious look pass between them. “He will say that he was with Schräger, but that he knows nothing of the killing of the young man in the alley. He will say that he became frightened by Schräger’s behavior and ran away, and that he telephoned to his mother to pick him up. He will not remember clearly where he was. He will say that he may have been drugged, but he will not wish to press charges against Schräger.”

  Markham nodded. “Absolutely. No need for Julian to go through anything that isn’t absolutely necessary.” He paused. “Schräger is, I take it, no longer a threat?”