Emily Shadowhunter 2 - a Vampire, Shapeshifter, Werewolf novel.: Book 2: WOLF MAN

by Craig Zerf

  Henry nodded. ‘Still here, sir. Same rooms.’ He pointed using his chin. ‘Above the tower.’

  ‘Thank you, Henry. And once again, my sympathies.’

  Henry nodded. ‘Sir,’ he doffed his hat at Emily. ‘Young miss.’ Then he turned on his heel and marched off, swinging his arms in a military fashion.

  ‘Who was that?’ Asked Em.

  ‘Head Porter,’ answered William. ‘Sergeant Major Henry Jaggard. Good sort. Very strict. Often used to catch me sneaking in after hours. Used to give me a damn good thrashing, which we all preferred to being put on report.’

  ‘So you went to Cambridge?’

  ‘Yes, Corpus Christi.’

  ‘But that must have been…’

  ‘Oh, hundreds of years back,’ admitted William.

  ‘So obviously Henry the porter isn’t human then,’ noted Em. ‘What is he?’

  William grinned. ‘Oddly, Henry is one hundred percent human. As are all of the porters. Don’t ask me how he’s been around for so long because I genuinely do not know. And it would be awfully bad form to ask him. As far as we could all work out, it appears that the porters work outside of the normal constrictions of time and space. That’s why they always know what everyone is doing all of the time. Believe me, if you need to know anything about the town, the university or anyone in it, then ask one of the porters. He will know.’

  Em sighed. ‘This is doing my head in,’ she said. ‘It’s so unbelievable that it must be true. I mean, who would make stuff like that up? Anyway, let’s go and meet this professor of yours.’

  William laughed and led the way to a small door set back in the stone wall. It was slightly lower and slightly narrower than a normal door and, for some reason, unless you looked directly at it and concentrated really hard, it simply wasn’t there. When Em remarked about that William nodded.

  ‘Secret door,’ he said. ‘Well, not secret, more like a shy door. Doesn’t want to be seen. So unless you know that it’s there, then it isn’t. Great if you don’t want uninvited guests.’

  William opened the door and walked in.

  ‘It’s unlocked,’ noted Em.

  ‘No. It’s locked using wards. Basic protection spells. The wards know me, so they let me in. If a stranger did notice the door and tried to get in then it simply wouldn’t open.’

  ‘Pretty cool,’ said Em as she followed William up a stone, spiral staircase. The stairway twisted so sharply and was so cramped that William had to turn sideways to fit his broad shoulders in and even then he was scraping the walls as he went up.

  The stairs opened into a room. High ceilings, stone walls, lots of mullioned windows. To Emily it looked as if the interior of the building was at least five or six times larger than the exterior. Not long before she would have thought that it was a mere optical illusion of some sort. But now she knew that it was probably far more likely that the Prof had somehow bent space or warped it or something equally as weird.

  At the far end of the long room stood a wizened old man. He was dressed in a tweed suit and his hair stuck out about his head like a ball of cotton-candy. He was surrounded by literally hundreds of bubbling retorts and beakers and dishes. Multi-colored liquids ran through glass tubes, steam escaped shining steel vessels and a light-yellow miasma hung in the air. It smelled of aniseed.

  He looked up. Blinked furiously and then let out a joyful yell.

  ‘William, old boy,’ he shouted as he walked over, his legs stiff, like a penguin. He grabbed the Wolfman in an embrace. ‘Wonderful,’ he said.

  ‘Good to see you, Prof,’ returned William. ‘It’s been a while.’

  ‘So it has,’ agreed the Prof. ‘Months I would say.’

  William laughed. ‘A little longer than that, Prof.’

  The old man stared at William suspiciously. ‘Oh? Really? What’s the date then?’

  ‘Wednesday. Third of March.’

  ‘The year,’ snapped the Prof. ‘What year is it?’

  ‘Two thousand and sixteen,’ informed William.

  ‘Goodness me,’ exclaimed the Professor in astonishment. ‘That would mean it’s been…’ he paused. ‘Over two hundred years since we last saw each other.’

  William nodded.

  ‘My,’ continued the Prof. ‘How time flies. Now who is this delightful creature?’ He enquired as he gestured towards Emily.

  ‘Professor, may I introduce miss Emily Hawk?’

  ‘You certainly may, old boy,’ chuckled the old man as he stuck out his hand. ‘Name’s Albert. Damned pleased to meet you.’

  ‘And I you,’ said Emily. ‘So, professor,’ she continued. ‘What exactly are you? A scientist or a magician?’

  ‘Good question,’ answered the Prof. ‘Answer is a little cryptic, though. I’d say that I’m both. And neither. Really all that I do is mix things together and see what happens. Trial and error. Fortunately I have time on my side so I tend to get a lot done, even though it’s probably not the most efficient way of going about things. Still, it’s pretty much how all of the great discoveries have taken place. Men with a yearning to learn, simply mixing stuff together and hoping that it doesn’t explode. Or, in some cases, that it does.’

  Emily laughed. ‘So you’re saying that most of mankind’s discoveries were just a bunch of people doing random stuff to see what happened?’

  The Prof smiled. ‘The first cure for malaria was Quinine. Found in the bark of the cinchona tree. Tastes awful. So how was that discovered? Most likely some curious chap wandered about chewing tree bark until his malaria went away. At the same time there must have been hundreds of others who ate grasses, insects, all sorts of things in the hope of curing themselves. The bark worked. That’s what I do. I am essentially a simple bark-chewer hoping to find new and exciting accidents.’

  ‘Well we need you to chew some bark for us, Professor,’ said William. ‘Let me explain.’

  And William brought the Prof up to date with events, starting at the very beginning and leaving nothing out. The story took over two hours in the telling and, as the Wolfman finished, Professor Brownstone was already loading various bits of equipment into a bag.

  ‘I shall bring the absolute necessities,’ he said. ‘The rest you can acquire for me when we get to your base. I have many ideas on the backburner, old boy,’ he continued. ‘I’m sure that you shall be very impressed. Well, if I can bring them to fruition. But these evil leeches must be stopped. I have always nurtured a deep and abiding hatred for the undead.’ He shook his head. ‘They must go.’

  They left only minutes later to begin the three hour drive back to the New Forest, the Prof sitting in the back of the Landrover, mumbling and nodding to himself the whole way as he jotted down notes on a scrappy piece of paper.

  Chapter 9

  Tag watched Emily drive off with a sinking feeling in his heart. He knew that she needed some time alone. Or at least some time without him protectively looking over her shoulder twenty-four seven. Tag wasn’t a stupid man. He was gruff and rough and big and bad. But he knew that his self-appointed role as Emily’s bodyguard was little more than a ceremonial position. Meaning that he knew if someone attacked the Shadowhunter and she couldn’t defeat them, then there was no way on God’s Earth that he was actually going to be of any help whatsoever. The fact of the matter was that Em could flatten him with a single punch.

  But he was willing to take a bullet for her. He was willing to kill and to die for the teenage girl. And he needed the position more than she needed him. Because without it he felt completely useless.

  Formally the top dog in his group, he was now at the very bottom of the pecking order, surrounded by werewolves and Purebloods and shapeshifters, all who were blessed with unnatural strength and speed and power far beyond the norm. All he had going for him was his size and his willingness to stand up and be counted. He thought for a while and then he set off to find Lucas Cain, the Alpha of The Protectors and the leader of Charlie group.

  ‘Hey, Lucas,’ he greet
ed when he saw him.

  The Alpha turned to face the Yardie and nodded, taciturn as usual.

  ‘Listen, boss,’ continued Tag. ‘Your group is going to London. I think that I better come with you. It’s my town and I can be a lot of help with information on the street.’

  Lucas stared at the big man for a while and then nodded. ‘Okay. Tool up, we leave in an hour.’

  Tag grinned and went to kit up and prepare, happy to be needed.

  ***

  Tag directed Charlie team to a road in Earl’s Court. Once a row of massive privately owned Victorian houses, it was now a motley collection of one star hotels and licensed accommodation. Places that didn’t ask for identification, dealt in cash and didn’t care that you signed the guest book as Donald Duck and associates.

  The team spread themselves amongst the hotels, checking five of them in at each one, paying cash and then meeting in a car park situated down a narrow side street.

  ‘Tag is going to do a recce,’ said Lucas. Then he pointed out one of the wolves. ‘Simon, you go with him. Make sure that he isn’t being tailed and ensure that he comes to no harm.’

  ‘Hey,’ objected Tag. ‘I don’t need no bodyguard. I am the bodyguard.’

  Lucas looked at Tag, unblinking, his eyes two shimmering orbs of gold. ‘You are what I say you are,’ he stated. ‘And you do as I say that you do.’

  Tag took note of the Wolfman’s total confidence and absolute assumption that he would be obeyed. He was Alpha. His word was iron.

  The Yardie nodded. ‘Come on, Simon,’ he said. ‘Let’s hit the streets and find us some vamps to put down.’

  Chapter 10

  The Professor stood outside the house, his head cocked to one side, his nose twitching slightly. Like a dormouse. His tweed hat was cocked to the back of his head exposing a dandelion-fluff of white hair and a high smooth forehead.

  ‘I’ve been here before,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed William. ‘A long time ago.’

  ‘I remember,’ continued the Prof. ‘You had some awful relative staying with you. Some Duke or Count or something.’

  ‘Baron Otto Von Righoven,’ admitted William. ‘Although he wasn’t a relative. Simply an old family friend.’

  ‘Terrible fellow,’ said the Prof. ‘Obsessed with hunting, as I recall. Spent his whole day with a musket, looking for deer to murder.’

  ‘If memory serves,’ added William. ‘I do believe that you put a stop to that.’

  ‘I did, I did,’ concurred the Prof.

  ‘How?’ Asked Emily, genuinely curious.

  ‘Oh, simple really, slipped a potion into his morning tea. Idiot spent the rest of his stay thinking that he was a travelling clairvoyant called madam Zelda and kept trying to read everyone’s palms. Complete fool.’

  Emily giggled. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘I don’t think that I like the sound of him.’

  William shook his head. ‘Not so good, poor old Otto never recovered. Spent his dotage in an asylum for the insane, insisting that the carnival had left town without him.’

  ‘Serves him right,’ snorted the Prof. ‘Trying to prove his manhood by blowing the heads off innocent animals. Now, William, good chap. Show me my room and my laboratory and I shall get to work. Time is wasting as we speak.’

  William showed the old man his digs and then told him that he could select any room that he wanted for a lab. After he had done so he must simply make a list of everything that he needed and William would ensure that it arrived poste-haste.

  ‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ said Em to William as they left the Prof. ‘But when he just got angry, he seemed to grow. A foot or so at least. Also, he suddenly didn’t seem as old.’

  William chuckled. ‘Yeah, he tends to do that when he loses control. He’s not human, you know.’

  ‘Oh, duh,’ countered Em. ‘Really? I thought that he was one of those rare three hundred year old people that I keep hearing about. Obviously he’s not human. What is he?’

  ‘Actually he’s a Boggart. A type of large male fairy, obsessed with the gaining of knowledge. Also very protective over animals. Extremely old. Much more than three hundred years, as it happens. I know that it’s a long shot but who knows, perhaps he can come up with some sort of weapon that could help us.’

  ‘Worth a try,’ admitted Em. ‘Let’s get something to eat. I’m starving. Again.’

  Emily made herself a pile of sandwiches while William simply threw a few steaks into a pan and warmed them through.

  By the time that they had eaten, the Prof had come through with two hand-written pages of things that he needed.

  William glanced over them. ‘Some of these I can get in the next couple of days,’ he noted. ‘Other items are a little more obscure. Might take a week or so.’

  ‘As swiftly as you can, old chap,’ urged the Prof. ‘Things to do, don’t you know? Things to do.’

  Chapter 11

  Tag was finding things a little more difficult than he had expected. Ever since the bloodsuckers had murdered the last of his people, the streets had been taken over by a new gang. A mixture of Eastern Europeans, mainly Russians and Ukrainians. Unlike the Yardies who had sold marijuana, scalped tickets and traded in bootleg music and DVDs, the Russians were much more hard-core. Badly cut cocaine, amphetamines and ketamine.

  And their street dealers weren’t the happy-go-lucky Rasta stoners. Instead they had been replaced with hard-eyed thugs whose job was to sell misery at a profit. Many of Tag’s informants had been pushed to the periphery of the street trade and their knowledge of what was happening was now severely limited. However, they did know who Tag could approach and they were only too happy to tell him, for a small fee.

  So he found himself with Simon at the end of a dark, narrow alleyway in the center of Soho, London, talking to three Russian drug dealers.

  ‘I don’t know anything about Goth clubs or Vampires,’ said the one dealer. ‘Go away, you’re wasting my time.’

  ‘Listen, friend,’ said Tag. ‘All I want to know is where the Goths and Vamp wannabees are hanging out of late. I know that they’re all into recreational drugs, so that means that you know where, and who, they are. Now make it easy on yourself and tell us. We’ll even make it worth your while.’

  ‘Go away, mudak.’ Snapped one of the other dealers.

  ‘What?’ Questioned Tag. ‘What you say?’

  ‘He called you an asshole,’ said Simon.

  ‘Really? He’s a drug dealer and he calls me an asshole?’ Tag backhanded the man across the face, spinning him around with the force of the blow. ‘I try to be decent and look where it gets me.’

  Almost as one, all three of the Russians drew knives. Large oversized blades almost as big as meat-cleavers.

  ‘You have made big mistake, mudak,’ said the one. ‘Now we cut you bad.’

  Tag stepped backwards as he tried to keep all three of the men in his field of vision. It was difficult as they fanned out in front of him. He hadn’t brought a weapon as he had not anticipated having to use one. And now he sincerely regretted that decision. Until he heard a growl behind him.

  A deep rumbling sound of terror inducing cadence. Deep and loud enough to feel in your gut as it literally grabbed hold of your viscera and gave them a shake. And Tag didn’t need to look around to see what was making that primeval sound. He knew.

  The three men opposite him, however, had never seen such a sight before. And when the massive wolf stalked past Tag, its lips peeled back to reveal three inch long canines, thick ropes of saliva hanging from its chops and its eyes afire with the very essence of barely restrained violence. They simply dropped their knives and sank to their knees.

  Tag grinned. ‘So, any of you lads want to give me some information or would you rather the Wolfman chewed your faces off?’

  Minutes later the Russian were fleeing from the scene and Tag and Simon knew pretty much everything that they needed to know.

  ***

  Lucas Cain had nar
rowed it down to two clubs. One was a large nightclub in an old converted department store in Kilburn, appropriately named ‘The Department Store’. The other was a place called ‘The Midnight Rendezvous’, a late night jazz club on the outskirts of Fulham.

  He had sent a group of Purebloods out to recce them during the day and had decided that they were going to hit both of them that very night.

  The theory was that the leeches would never suspect two hits in as many hours. And then Charlie team would lay low for a while until the heat went down before they struck again. Tag loved the idea. It sat really well with his ‘hit-hard-and-fast’ attitude towards battle.

  They chose to do The Department Store first. They weren’t splitting into two separate teams as Lucas wanted to go in full-handed and make sure that they absolutely overwhelmed any opposition.

  So, at a quarter to twelve they gathered across from The Department Store. As the target was so large they decided to hit it from three directions at once. Tag and ten Purebloods were going to go in through the front entrance. There was to be no subtlety involved, they were planning on simply walking in, pushing the doormen into the club and then closing the doors and locking them with a length of silver coated chain and a padlock. Three Purebloods would wait outside to ensure no one else entered or left.

  The second group of ten Purebloods would enter through the back entrance, securing it as they did so. Then they would simply sweep and clear until they met up with group number one.

  Lucas would be bringing the wolves in from above. They were going to scale the next door building and come in through the skylights, working their way down through the top two floors to the ground.

  Afterwards they would leave via the rear entrance, run to their transport and drive to the Midnight Rendezvous jazz club where the next bout of extermination would take place.

  The other group of Purebloods and the wolves had already left to their ingress points when Tag glanced at his watch. Ten minutes to midnight.