Bad Wolf Chronicles, Books 1-3

by McGregor, Tim

  Across the table, Lara and her father stared at her like she’d grown two heads. He frowned. “Where did you get that?”

  “The internet,” Amy shrugged, like there could be some other answer. “I’ve been researching it.”

  “Wonderful.”

  The three of them sitting round the kitchen table. Cartons of Indian take-out spread out on the table top. Amy’s favourite. She had called her dad at work and cajoled him into picking it up on his way home. A special occasion, she said. When he groused, she reminded him that it was Christmas and not to be a Grinch.

  Despite the events of last night, the three of them had carried on like it was any other day. Gallagher, hurrying to get out of the house. Hollering at his daughter to get up and get her butt in gear. Amy grumpy and slow like every morning. Her dad reminding her that she had work today, nagging her not to be late. Lara, although still a little shaky, made breakfast. Amy marvelled at the normalness of it all, the three of them bustling through an everyday routine. She said nothing to her dad about Lara’s attempt to run away the night before. Neither did Lara, but she winked at Amy over her coffee. A silent nod of thanks for keeping a secret.

  Amy had her dad drop her off at work and Lara stayed home with the dog. Coming home that afternoon, she found Lara flipping through the news, bored. They caught up, Lara eager to know what Amy had been up to these last three months. When dad came home, they unpacked the take-out cartons and tucked in.

  Flipping through her notebook, Amy went on. “It’s weird. Every culture has some version of a shapeshifter but there’s no consistency to any of it. But maybe that’s how it works, you know? It affects everyone differently.”

  Lara shifted in her chair, uncomfortable with discussing it openly like this. Like chatting about some flaw, like a stutter or a wart, as dinner conversation. “We don’t have to talk about this,” she said.

  “Of course we do.” Amy jerked her head up in surprise. “Not to be rude, Lara, but you’re a lycanthrope. How often does that happen?”

  Gallagher sipped his beer. “It’s not a freak show, Amy.”

  “I know. I’m just trying to find some answers to something that’s kinda unprecedented. I mean, what is it? Is it biological, like a disease, or is it supernatural? What triggers it? Does the moon have anything to do with it?”

  “It has nothing to do with the moon,” Lara said.

  Amy looked at her dad. “See, there’s something. You have to understand something first before you can deal with it.”

  “Isn’t it past your bedtime?” Gallagher groused.

  She ignored him. “So how does it work? Can you switch anytime at will?”

  “It’s always there, just under the surface. I’m not sure how to describe it. It’s like keeping a muscle clenched. All I’d have to do is let go.”

  “But there is a trigger?” Amy perked up.

  “It runs off your emotions. Raw, primitive ones. Like fear.” Here she shot a look towards Gallagher and looked away. “Some other emotion.”

  Gallagher coughed, watched his daughter take notes. Notes, for god’s sakes.

  “So what’s the deal with the silver? When Dad cut you with it last night, you stopped convulsing.”

  “Silver can shut it down. If I do it before I’m too far gone.” Lara pushed her plate back. “Why that works, I don’t know.”

  Amy, tapping her pen against her lips. “Maybe it’s a cure.”

  “There is no cure.”

  Gallagher squared Lara with a look. “We don’t know that.”

  “Well there’s death,” she said. “That cure is garaunteed.”

  “Ivan Prall thought he had a cure.”

  “He was wrong.”

  Amy watched them, eyes moving from one to the other like a tennis match. Hearing the tension under their voices. There was more to the story. “Forget about a cure for now. We just need to manage the symptoms.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How does the silver knife work?”

  “By drawing blood. Cutting the silver into the bloodflow shuts down the transformation.” Lara held out her forearm, the scars crisscrossed over the skin. “If I catch it in time.”

  “Why silver?” Gallagher said. “Of all the weird things in the folklore, why does that one work?”

  “It’s pure,” Amy suggested. “The ancients believed it could purify illness. Silver can prevent sepsis too.”

  “It’s a moot point,” Lara said. Impatient, having already run through the same arguments in her head for months. “Maybe it’s a chemical reaction or maybe its a placebo. I believe it will work, so it does. There’s no way to know for sure.”

  Gallagher sneered. “So what, we just give up?”

  “No, we just face some simple truths. There are no real answers.” She nodded at Amy’s notebook. “It’s fairy tales and conjecture. Nada mas.”

  He let it go. Lara reverted to Spanish when riled.

  “It works in piercings,” Amy offered, oblivious.

  “Piercings?”

  Amy clutched her earlobe although there was no earring to be seen. “It’s the one metal that won’t cause infection. Ask any tattoo artist.”

  “Again, fascinating but not that useful.” Lara held a palm to the sky. “You see the dilemma.”

  “But in your case the silver only works if you cut before you’re too far gone?” Amy chewed her pen then bolted up and tossed her notes onto the table. “I got an idea. Be right back.”

  She ran for the stairs. Lara frowned and rose to clear the table. Gallagher tucked the leftovers in the fridge and then leaned against the counter. “Why are you so quick to dismiss any idea that might help?”

  “This part of it is new to you, John. You said yourself you hadn’t thought about what to do once you found me.” She ran the faucet, plugged the sink and looked back at him. “I’ve done nothing but think about all this for months. My expectations for a happy ending are a little soggy by now.”

  “And that’s the problem. You’ve already given up.” He brushed her shoulder, sliding more plates into the water. “Because you’ve been working the problem alone, with no one to bounce ideas off of. That’s why the lieutenant insists we work in pairs. The open murder book will swallow a detective working solo. Simple as that.”

  “Facing reality is not the same as giving up.”

  She felt his hand on her back. “Hey,” he said. “You’re not alone. Not anymore. So give your old partner a chance to suss out the landscape, huh?” His hand slid down to her waist. “Listen, last night was weird. My bad. I wasn’t thinking.”

  She turned the water off. “There was two of us there. Half of that bad was mine.”

  A tiny respite from the tough exterior and wary-looking glances. He scrambled for the right words to say but then Amy came crashing back down the stairs.

  “Ta-da!” Amy bounded up, breathless. She held up a small metal bolt.

  Gallagher squinted. “What is it?”

  “It’s a piercing stud. Silver.”

  “You want to give Lara a piercing?”

  Amy scowled at her dad, turning to Lara. “Instead of cutting when the change comes on, this will keep the silver in your skin all the time. Or at least until it heals. Then we’ll have to stud in a new spot.”

  “Let me see that.” Lara held the stud up to the light. Over an inch long, thick.

  Gallagher looked skeptical. “It’s a bit big for an earring, isn’t it?”

  “Not her ear, dad.” Amy beamed and patted Lara’s stomach. “Your navel.”

  Even the dog hung its face in doubt.

  Lara handed the stud back. “Your circus, kid. Let’s give it a shot.”

  “Are you sure that’s sterilized enough?”

  “It’s fine. Don’t block the light.”

  “So what do you do, just stab it through?”

  “Dad, please...”

  Lara Mendes lay on the living room floor, an old beach towel spread underneath her. She hoiste
d up her shirt and exposed her belly. The muscles taut, ribs poking up in ripples through the skin.

  Amy sat on Lara’s legs, holding a thick piercing needle still wet with rubbing alcohol. The silver bolt, likewise sterilized, was pinched in her latex-gloved fingers.

  Gallagher kneeled over them, training a flashlight onto Lara’s navel. “Where did you get that thing?”

  “It’s Gabby’s.”

  “I shoulda known. And what exactly were two planning on doing with this stuff? Giving each other studs?”

  Lara shot him a look. “John. Not now.”

  “Okay, hold still.” Amy bent to her work, pinching up a wedge of flesh and threading the needle against the skin. The instrument shook, as did her whole hand.

  “Ouch.”

  “Hold still.”

  “I am.”

  It was harder than it looked. Blood dribbled out and welled up in the navel and Amy couldn’t see the point of contact. She pushed and Lara flinched but Amy couldn’t push the needle any further.

  “Is it done?”

  “I can’t get it to go through.”

  “Just push it,” Gallagher said.

  “I am!” Amy snapped. “Do you want to try it?”

  “Nope. This is your idea.” He grabbed a towel and smeared away the blood. “Lara, look at the ceiling and hold your breath.”

  Lara looked away, saw the dog watching them.

  “Get a good grip,” Gallagher whispered to his daughter. “Then give it all you got.”

  Amy held her breath too and stabbed. Lara gasped and her stomach caved in but the needle went through. “Okay,” Amy panted. “Gimme the stud.”

  “That stings.”

  “Almost there,” he said.

  Amy lined up the stud, pulled the needle through and threaded the stud in. Gallagher dabbed the blood away and Amy capped the silver stud. She leaned back, holding her bloodied hands up. “There. How does that feel?”

  Lara sighed, looked at them both. “Good. It feels good.” In truth, she felt nothing but a sharp sting. No discernible change inside, no exorcism of the monster coiled in her heart. But Amy seemed pleased so she kept that information to herself.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  GALLAGHER CAME TO work with a tray of tall coffee cups in hand, the fancy stuff that Detective Wade always went for. He was feeling magnanimous and generous, perhaps a little guilty too. Wade was a decent guy who had tolerated his black moods and frequent disappearances with nary a complaint nor snide remark. Buying a round of coffee, even the froo-froo stuff Wade indulged in, wouldn’t make up for all of it but it was a start.

  Gallagher strode with an uncharacteristic light step. Despite the fact that he had left his teenage daughter alone with his former homicide partner, who had been presumed dead but was contrarily alive and cursed with lycanthropy, the day seemed especially fine. He ambled off to work with a lightness in his heart so rare he barely recognized what it was. It was Christmas too.

  “What’s all this?” Detective Wade looked at the tray in Gallagher’s hand. Wary, he said “You need a favor, G?”

  “My turn to buy the joe.” Gallagher slid the tall cup onto Wade’s desk and held the empty tray for a moment before flinging it like a Frisbee across the bullpen to Detective Kopzych’s desk.

  “Your turn was in November.”

  “Merry Christmas.”

  Wade plucked the lid off the cup and looked inside, idly wondering if it had been poisoned. “You feeling okay, buddy?”

  Gallagher shrugged. “It’s just coffee, homes. Don’t go all weepy.”

  “Somebody got lucky last night.” Wade wagged his finger, grinning wide. “Come on, muchacho. What’s the poor woman’s name?”

  “Your sister.” He looked over the mess of his inbox. “What fraction of the daily manure pile are we tackling today?”

  “Rowe and Dorsey caught a floater on the riverbank over in Lakewood. They might need some help combing the weeds.”

  “Better than sitting here.” He pushed the paperwork away. The desk phone buzzed and he banged up the receiver. “Gallagher.”

  “G, you got another hit.” Taylor down in IT. “Pretty good match too.”

  “Dude, it’s your lucky day. You can shut down the bloodhounds. I won’t be needing it anymore.”

  “Now you tell me? Shit, man.” Taylor wheezed into the phone. “You wanna hear this last hit or was this a monumental waste of my time and talent too?”

  “Naw, let’s hear it.”

  “Some lady reported that her dog was killed by something. A bear or a giant dog, she didn’t know what. But it ripped her pooch to hamburger.”

  “Where was this?”

  “Northeast Stafford. No Po.”

  North Portland. Close indeed.

  Lara was going stir crazy, that was plain enough. She couldn’t sit still and Amy watched her cross repeatedly to the bay window to stare outside. The spruce lined street and the telephone lines drooping from pole to pole in a cat’s cradle of humming wire. Like a date abandoned on prom night, Lara would turn away and busy herself with some task only to return to the double-glazed glass again.

  “Are you expecting someone?” Amy asked, looking up from her creaky old laptop propped open on the kitchen table.

  “What?” Lara turned, her eyes a thousand yards away.

  “You keep looking out the window.”

  “It’s nothing.” Lara strode to the kitchen and folded her arms. She put away the two dishes in the dryrack and wiped the counter with the cloth and folded her arms again. “Just cabin fever, I guess. No big deal.”

  Amy studied her for a moment and a curious study she was. Different from how she used to know her but it wasn’t just the reedy thinness of her or the sombre hollows of her eyes. A twitchy edge underwrit Lara Mendes’s every movement. Her eyes darted at any stirring and her head constantly cocked at an angle, as if her ear snagged on some sound only she heard. Or the dog. More than once she had caught Lara and the husky turn their heads to the door at precisely the same instant and pause. It was freaky. “What was it like? Being on your own out there.”

  “Harsh. Scary sometimes. Lonely.”

  “Of course,” Amy nodded. “Still, it must have been kinda cool being totally free. No one to answer to. No commitments, no responsibilities.”

  Lara shook her head. “There was nothing free about it. I was living hand-to-mouth, scrabbling for any scrap. It’s unbelievably hard, being that alone. There were more than a few nights I went hungry or slept out in the open.” She swept her hand before her, as if dealing an invisible hand. “Freedom like that is a burden.”

  Amy mulled it over but with had little notion of what it meant, neither precedent nor antecedent. She changed the subject. “Let’s get out of here for awhile.”

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  “Psshaw. We’ll hit Mississippi Ave and go walking, get something to eat. I still got Christmas shopping to do.”

  Lara’s eyes drifted to the window again, the yearning writ plain across her face but she sobered. “No. I can’t risk being seen.”

  “What are the chances? Hang on.” Amy ran to the hall closet, dug through it and came back with a fur trimmed bomber’s hat. Dark sunglasses. “Wear this.”

  Lara took the glasses and headgear, turning them over in her hands. Before she could protest, Amy clapped her hands together like a little kid. “Try it on.”

  Humoring the girl, Lara went to the mirror in the hallway and pulled the hat on, pushed the glasses on her nose. Plain and anonymous. Any passerby on a cold street.

  “See?” Amy plunged back into the closet and thrust a long coat into Lara’s hands. “Your army parka looks a little conspicuous. Wear this.”

  Lara reminded herself that she was the adult here and the plan was foolishly risky but the enthusiasm of a young girl can be rolling tidal wave. Hard to push back.

  A short trip, she comprised. Just enough to get some air and stretch her legs. No harm, no foul.
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br />   “Roosevelt was a good boy. He never did nobody no wrong. It’s just awful.” The woman’s name was Maggie and she lived in a small but tidy bungalow on Stafford Street. She’d let Gallagher in and the two of them stood in her foyer, Maggie folding her arms against the draft whistling under the door. “Just goddawful it was.”

  “What time was this?” Gallagher had his notebook out but had yet to record any detail. “Roughly?”

  “Past midnight. Closer to one, probably.”

  “And what did you see?”

  “Roosevelt started barking something awful. He’s a good boy, only barks when there’s trouble. He was a good boy, I should say.” The woman plucked a tissue from her sleeve, dabbed her nose and tucked the tissue back where it came. “I came down to bring him inside, hush him up. There was this goddawful roar, like nothing I ain’t never heard and Roosevelt got real quiet. Then...”

  Gallagher waited for her composure to return, watching her retrieve the crumpled tissue from her sleeve again. He patted his pockets for a tissue pack but had none.

  “This thing swooped out of nowhere and just took him off. Roosevelt was there one minute and then this blur of something and then whoosh, my dog was gone. I went outside later, to call him. He was crumpled up against the back fence like a broken-up old toy.” She started to cry again. “I didn’t even recognize him at first he was so torn up.”

  “And the animal that took Roosevelt, you said it was a big dog.”

  “I don’t know what else it could have been. I thought maybe a bear, but that’s silly.”

  “Can you describe it?”

  “It was big. Fast. That’s all I saw.”

  “What colour was it?”

  “What?”

  “Anything. Light, dark?”

  “I don’t know. It was a blur and it was loud. Goddawful sound I never want to hear.”

  Gallagher peered out the window, looking over the yard. “Do you mind if I take a look at the spot where you found him?”