Imperium Lupi

by Adam Browne

  “Indeed. Nonetheless you should’ve.”

  “Yes, sir. I humbly apologise to the Doctor, and his Prefects. I didn’t realise I’d caused any real upset.”

  Josef adjusted his tinted spectacles. “You can fool Vladimir, Linus, but we both know what happened,” he growled, “and you know exactly where Olivia is. Tell me, or else you’re coming to ALPHA HQ!”

  “I don’t know where she is.”

  “We’ll see,” Josef purred maliciously.

  Vladimir spread his paws, “Doctor, this is hardly necessary-”

  “It is completely necessary! You haven’t the least understanding what’s at stake here!”

  “Some lowly dodgers? I rather think we have bigger worries with THORN. Can you not shake paws with Linus and put this aside?”

  “I have a warrant!” Josef snapped, flapping a rolled up sheet of paper under the Grand Howler’s nose. “Do you want me to fetch one with your name on it as well, Vladimir?”

  Silence.

  Kneading the arms of his plush antique chair, Vladimir sighed, “I’m sorry, Linus, but you’ll have to go with him.”

  “But, sir-”

  “He has a warrant. We must comply. I’m sure it’ll come to nothing.”

  “Yes, sir,” Linus said, failing not to gulp.

  Glaring at Josef, Vladimir said with a disapproving smack of his lips, “Of course… I’ll inform Elder Amael of this wanton intrusion. I’m sure he’ll be interested to hear it ahead of the Summit where the future of ALPHA is to be discussed and voted upon by the Den Fathers.”

  “You do that,” Josef sniffed, stepping up to Linus, taller by a head but thinner by a body. “We’ve a car waiting in the courtyard, Howler. I suggest you do not try anything funny between here and there; my associates will not hesitate to bring you down.”

  Linus remained silent as Josef’s ‘associates’ relieved him of his weapons and escorted him to the door.

  “I expect ALPHA to observe due process, Grau,” Vladimir warned, chin raised. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

  “I wouldn’t dream,” Josef Grau replied, taking his leave.

  Once his office door had closed, Vladimir twiddled his pen and nursed his furrowed brow, taking a moment to wrestle with the situation.

  Against all reason and sense the Grand Howler plucked his telephone from the desk and dialled through to where he shouldn’t. Listening to the stifled ring, he walked to the window with the phone cord trailing behind him and looked down into the Den’s courtyard, at Josef’s shiny black ALPHA car. The Doctor and his strong-arm Prefects appeared in short order, escorting the red-cloaked Linus to the car and ducking him inside. The youngster’s paws had been bound with Howler-wire on the way, as if Josef knew what he was dealing with. Is it really some dodger he’s after, or is it Linus he wants?

  “Janoah here,” the phone crackled tiresomely.

  “It’s Vladimir.”

  “What do you want? I’m very busy.”

  “I need you to do me a favour,” Vladimir said hurriedly, as Josef’s car drove away.

  “If this is about Tristan you can forget it.”

  “What?”

  “He’s a traitor and he might have information. I’m not letting him go just because he’s Ivan’s cousin and Thorvald’s favourite, so save your breath-”

  “Humph!” Vladimir scoffed. “Keep him and let it be on your head when Thorvald kicks up a stink with Adal. It’s Linus I’m worried about.”

  “Linus?”

  “Josef just arrested him.”

  “Well,” Janoah huffed, “he must have good reason-”

  “A foolish mistake nothing more. You owe him, Janoah; get him out of this.”

  Silence.

  “Besides,” Vladimir grumbled, “you know what he is as well as I do. If he ever makes it, he’ll thank us later.”

  ~Blick vii~

  Meryl Stroud set some hot fish soup down beside the window, the rising steam caught the afternoon sun. Shivering, Rafe sat warming himself by the imperium hearth, his hips and shoulders wrapped in fresh towels.

  “‘Get our feet wet’,” Meryl quoted, imitating Rafe’s voice. She continued as normal, “I told my aunt you fell in and the otters pulled you ashore.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Only to save them getting in trouble, not you. Otters are mischievous folk, especially the youngsters. But I think you take the biscuit.”

  “They o-o-owe me a p-p-penny.”

  “They saved your life; I rather think that’s a debt paid. Can’t swim, indeed, what’s a beast to do with you?”

  Rafe laughed and sniffed snottily. “Sorry.”

  Meryl set about drying his ears and neck, like a mother would their cub after they had endured a bath. Once Rafe’s fur was thoroughly ruffled, Meryl took the towel from his shoulders and laid it by the hearth, with his clothes and ribbon.

  “Now eat your soup before you catch a cold. Janoah would kill me if she found out; I’m supposed to be making you better, not finishing you off!”

  Rafe shuffled his chair over to the table and dutifully made a start on his soup. Blowing on the spoon, he watched the beasts of New Tharona go about their business, strolling along the sea front and down the pier. It was a far cry from Lupa, quiet, soothing, fresh, yet still Rafe itched, not from ash getting in his fur, but the need to get back and work.

  Janoah had said it, the Alpha is watching.

  “I feel much better,” Rafe blurted between great slurps of fish broth and hunks of bread. “Compared to last week.”

  Meryl sounded hopeful, “You do?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, that’s good! How’re your eyes?”

  Rafe pointed out the window, “I can read the shop signs.”

  “Which one?”

  “All of ‘em,” the Eisenwolf claimed, chomping away and hoping Meryl believed him.

  A long silence.

  “Did you really recognise that hog?” Meryl asked out of left field.

  “Hog?”

  “The one sitting at the café with Howler Tristan.”

  Rafe stirred his soup, shrugged, “Maybe.”

  “Well, I did,” Meryl revealed. “He’s a Politzi chief in Bloodfang territory now, but he used to be a rebel, back during the war.”

  “Rebel?”

  “Yes. I mean, it’s all passed now, of course, there was the amnesty, but… still, it’s strange Tristan would be talking to someone like that, especially out here in New Tharona. It’s as if he was being discreet about it.”

  “Maybe they’re old friends?”

  “Yes. Best not tell anyone about it, though. All right?”

  Rafe turned to Meryl. “Why not?”

  “Just promise you won’t. Tristan’s a dear friend, I wouldn’t want him getting in trouble on our account.”

  A mock frown, “Who’s Tristan?”

  Meryl smiled and folded some clothes. “I’m sure it’s nothing anyway-”

  Knock! Knock! Knock!

  Before Meryl could ask who was at the bedroom door, Janoah all but burst inside, flanked by two more grim-looking ALPHA Prefects.

  “Jan!” Rafe woofed, wiping his mouth and standing to attention in nought but a towel.

  Janoah cast her eye over him, “Am I interrupting something, Stenton?”

  “No, Prefect.”

  Blinking disbelief from her eyes, Meryl half-lied, “Rafe… just had a bath.”

  A slow, careful, Janoah-brand nod, “He’s not so infirm he can’t wash himself?”

  “No, Prefect, I was just delivering some soup.”

  “Ah.”

  Meryl tugged her dress, “May I ask what you’re doing out here? Am I not to be trusted with Rafe alone, is that it?”

  Janoah held up a paw, “I trust you implicitly, my dear. Grand Prefect Horst has it in for us, however. He’s poured poison in someone’s ear and made sure Rafe can’t leave the city again, not without ‘proper’ authorisation. He’s jealous that’s all. Pa
thetic really.”

  “Then-”

  “Yes, the holiday’s over, I’m afraid.”

  “But Rafe’s not been here a week!”

  “I delayed as long as I could,” Janoah claimed. “I even took a leisurely drive and a long walk along the seafront… but I’m here now.” She nodded at her Eisenwolf, “Get dressed, Stenton, we’re going home.”

  “Yes, marm.”

  “Marm and Prefect, is it? Sea air must’ve done you a world of good, you’re beginning to sound like a soldier at last. Who’d have thought?”

  Rafe smiled a little.

  Saluting ALPHA-style, Janoah took her leave, “We’ll be down on the seafront. Don’t be too long packing.”

  Once the Prefects had quite gone, Meryl threw the clothes she had been folding down on the floor and sat on the bed. “It’s not fair! They’ve no right to do this, you’re owed leave like any other Howler or Prefect; more for what you’ve been through. I can’t be held responsible if you fall ill.”

  Rafe woofed, “But I feel better. I really do.”

  “Even so!”

  After a long silence and many a shrug and paw-spread, the tail-less wolfen giant that was Rafe sat beside Meryl, making the bed slump alarmingly. “Look, I had a lovely time.”

  She said nothing, but forced a smile.

  “Thanks. For everything, I mean. ”

  “Everything?”

  “Yeah. Everything you’ve done for me since we met. I… I feel like I’ve known you forever.”

  Meryl laughed a little.

  Rafe looked to the door, then back again. His eyes met Meryl’s and he held her gaze. Slowly, imperceptibly, his broad muzzle moved nearer to hers, until their noses all but touched.

  Meryl suddenly turned aside and stood up. “No.”

  “What?”

  “No, Rafe. We mustn’t.”

  Licking his lips, Rafe ran a paw over his ears then twiddled his thumbs on his lap, “Is it… is it because I’ve got the rot?”

  Meryl tutted sincerely, “No.”

  “Is it because me tail’s gone, then?”

  “No! No, of course not, silly. It makes no difference to me if a wolf has two tails, or none!”

  Rafe looked to the broth, “Do I have fishy breath?”

  “No!”

  “Well what then? Don’t you fancy me at all?”

  Meryl emitted a snort, “Rafe, I’m sure someone that looks like you do has kissed many a wolfess in his time.”

  He shrugged, “I couldn’t tell yer if I had, Meryl.”

  The nurse leapt on his words, “That’s why we mustn’t. Don’t you see? You’re not yourself right now. You say you feel like you’ve known me forever, but in six months I… I don’t even know if I’ve met the real Rafe Stenton yet. I would never forgive myself if something were to happen between us and you not even remember it a week later. It wouldn’t be fair on you.”

  “Yeah, but… that’ll never change, will it?”

  Meryl dodged Rafe’s simple logic. “Get dressed, all right? And finish your soup; it’s a long drive back to Lupa.”

  Retrieving the clothes she’d discarded, the nurse closed the door with a gentle, caring smile. Once she had gone, Rafe flopped back on the bed, mortified by his misstep.

  “Smooth, Rafe. Nice one. Idiot.”

  Chapter 32

  “Twenny-five… twenny-six… twenny-seven… twenny-eight.”

  Whilst Uther used an overhanging rock ledge as an improvised gymnasium, methodically pulling himself up to its rugged lip then lowering himself down again, Ivan deftly sliced raw mushrooms into a fire-licked frying pan. The freshly-picked fungal fruits hissed and danced around on the broiling oil like little white boats weathering a rough, storm-tossed sea. In reality it was a beautiful morning. The warm sun played on the burbling stream and tender-leafed trees rustled, caressed by an unseasonably clement breeze.

  The only intrusion was Uther’s grunts. “Thirty-five… thirty-six… thirty-seven.”

  If the gym-fanatic was trying to impress Blade-dancer by counting out loud, Ivan paid no outward heed.

  “Forty-nine,” Uther growled, pulling himself up one last time, “fifty!” and let go. “Woo!” he sniffed, rolling his muscled shoulders and swinging his sore arms, “That’s the way to start the day, mate.”

  “I’m impressed,” Ivan replied, “I didn’t know you could count to fifty.”

  Uther buttoned up his tunic and pinned his mantle about his athletic frame. Sauntering over to Ivan he sat in the grass nearby, paws knitted around his armoured knees. “What’s cooking?” he puffed.

  “I don’t know. I’m making it up.”

  “Puh! Smells good, though.”

  “It’ll do. At least Everdor provides forage, even if it is only roots and fungus this time of year.”

  Uther peered into the frying pan Ivan was rapidly filling with slices of various colourful vegetables; root, leaf and fungus. “Mate, I wouldn’t know where to begin. Where’d you learn all this guff?”

  Ivan waited a moment, “Noss.”

  Uther looked momentarily surprised, but said nothing. Breaking out an ember he took a few puffs, blowing minty green vapour to the wind.

  “You smoulder too much,” the ember-shy Ivan complained, as Uther’s vapours stung his eyes and nose.

  After a month breathing the clean air beyond Lupa, away from noxious smog and vapour-filled bars, a mere puff from an ember was akin to sticking one’s face’s in a monobike’s exhaust plume.

  “You shouldn’t rely on them,” Ivan added. “They only hasten the rot.”

  “Yes, Mum,” Uther replied.

  Whilst Ivan cooked, Uther lay on the grassy bank and cast his eyes over the lush glade he found himself in. Trees and bushes jostled for space, spring flowers bloomed by the waterside and small insects flitted between the waving reeds, their wings catching the sun like slivers of silver. So this is Everdor, in colour, in reality. The stale, monochrome newsreels did it no justice.

  Despite the circumstances, Uther knew he was lucky to experience this slice of paradise. Howlers were not allowed to leave Lupa without permission from their Elder, and if one took it upon himself to go AWOL they’d better have a source of stings. It did happen of course. Despite the propaganda to the contrary, disgruntled Howlers escaped the grind all the time to live it up in some foreign clime.

  Uther stared at his smouldering ember, rolling it between his dark, blue-grey fingers that were slightly stained with a rainbow of glittery imperious ash.

  “You know, mate,” he laughed, taking a deep draught of heady vapours, “we could do a runner.”

  Ivan paused stirring a moment, just a moment.

  “We’ve got a pack full of stings,” Uther went on, clouds of vapour punctuating his every word. “Nobody could stop us. Amael wouldn’t know anything’s happened until we didn’t show up to do his dirty work, and even then he couldn’t do anything. We’ll never have a better chance.”

  Uther cast a paw at the lovely scene.

  “I mean just look at that sky! Imagine waking up to that every day, instead of the usual Lupan schmutz. Puh!”

  Ivan remained silent, pushing sizzling mushrooms around with a roughly-carved wooden spoon as if he hadn’t been listening, or cared not to respond to Uther’s clumsy floatation.

  “I remember when we met you,” he said suddenly, “or should I say, when that drooling Vito showed you to us like an object.”

  Silence.

  Ivan chuckled, “Vito believed the rumours, that Rufus was the same depraved sort as him, a wolf who took whatever and whoever he wanted. You were strong and handsome, even then, but powerless, afraid, a cub really. I thought nothing of it, just another victim of Vito’s lust, a pretty boy dragged in off the street by his corrupt adjutants to satisfy him for a few weeks before being sent on. I was just a cub myself, barely a Howler. I knew no better. The war had hardened my heart. The things I’d seen and done.”

  Ivan shook his head a little, e
yes closing and opening.

  “But that’s no excuse,” he sniffed. “Rufus had been through the same, maybe worse. Still he cared. He got you out of Vito’s clutches and gave you a chance-”

  “So now I have to be grateful forever?” Uther exploded, standing up and turning away, rubbing his arms. “No wolf will touch me again. Not even Rufus. Alpha is me, alpha! Never a beta. Never!”

  A brief pause.

  Ivan huffed, “Maybe you can abandon him, just as you’ve always spurned him, but I can’t. Perhaps you’re the stronger wolf for it, a ‘real alpha’. I’ve never really bought into all that krap anyway.”

  Ivan breathed a sigh.

  “Take half the stings,” he grunted at last, “Don’t worry; I can manage this alone. It’s probably better that way. Rufus wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

  Uther threw his paws up in affected disgust. “By Ulf’s fangs, will you shut up?” he moaned. “I was just joking. Can’t you take a thumping joke? Puh!”

  Nodding, Ivan dished up breakfast into some wooden bowls. Uther silently snatched his portion and aggressively tucked in by himself.

  The Howlers ate in brooding silence.

  Though full of vitamins and flavour, a pile of fried vegetables lacked calories and Ivan knew they would quickly hunger. Fortunately they were nearing the sleepy towns that dotted Everdor and it would be easy enough to find some proper food.

  “Do you feel that?” Uther mumbled between chews.

  “Yes,” Ivan replied.

  “Where’s he at?”

  “Somewhere over my right shoulder.”

  “I figured. Stay here.”

  Finishing his food, Uther unpinned his cloak and cast it aside. “I’m gonna go wash,” he said aloud. “I’m humming after being on the road nearly two months.”

  “You’re not wrong,” Ivan agreed.

  Uther scuttled down the bank and disappeared behind some rocks for privacy, or so it might seem. Ivan knew better; he could feel Wild-heart’s potent corona growing fainter as he coasted to the right and round into the trees. The third presence remained stationary, and hopefully unaware. He might sense Uther’s approach, but Ivan’s perception was keener than most and Uther would dampen his own imperious corona by means unknown and unexplainable to those fortunate enough not to be afflicted.