by H B Lyne
Stalker swallowed her coffee. That had been Fortune following her, it was before she changed.
'Oh yeah,' she said, fighting back thoughts of her old pack.
'Did he ever bother you?'
'No,' she said, too quickly. 'No, not at all. Never saw him again.'
Ben watched her carefully for a long moment. The silence was interrupted by the waitress coming over to take their food order. As she left again, Ben leaned across the table.
'So I'm helping to draw up the plans for the underground. We have to go through all the city blueprints, all the sewers, cabling systems and everything to map out the access points, where the work will be done, set out a timetable and everything. Back when I was first put on the project they gave me this massive file, right, it goes back years. Someone has been planning this for years. Then about a week ago they gave me a new file and said the layout needed to change. I guess they found something while doing the tunnelling and have had to change direction.'
'What did they find?' Stalker asked, intrigued.
'I don't know, I'm just guessing at the reason for the changes. Someone higher up sends down the orders and we follow them. We're not really supposed to ask too many questions. For whatever reason we have to change the plans and we are being nagged hourly to get it done. It's going to set the whole project back, and someone up top doesn't want any delays.'
Stalker suspected she knew exactly who it was “up top” who was changing the plans.
'So the work is already under way?'
'Yeah, it has been for ages. This is massive, Ariana. They're projecting completion of the initial tunnel work by next summer.'
'Who's funding it?'
'A conglomerate, with some subsidies from the government and the city council.'
'So is it someone from the private sector dictating these changes?' Stalker knew the answer in her gut. She didn't know how long Theodore had been involved, maybe since the beginning, but he was certainly calling the shots now.
'I have no idea, I guess it could be, though I don't know why they would be involved. They're basically just the bank. I get my instructions from my boss within the council.' Ben said.
He took a sip of his espresso and sat back in his chair with a satisfied smile.
'You feel better for telling me, don't you?' Stalker asked with a smirk.
'Absolutely. You have no idea what it's like for me, I am awful at keeping secrets, just awful.'
They ate their lunch and laughed about old memories. Ben told her all about his trip to Rome and the near-proposal. It was nice, Stalker felt happy and relaxed and more like her old self than she had in a month.
Reluctantly, she parted from his company when he had to return to work and made her way to James's new office to meet him and help him finish unpacking. She saw him walking down the street towards his building and waved to him as she approached. He saw her and stopped at the door. He was holding a sandwich and greeted her with a warm smile.
'I just popped out for some lunch. There isn't much left to do.'
'Okay, well, I'll come in with you anyway and see if I can help.'
They went inside and were chatting away as they stepped off the stairs and into the reception area of James's office. Stalker stopped laughing as she set eyes upon a strange man sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the office door. He had small facial features and a thin moustache, his eyes darted about and he twitched nervously.
'Can I help you?' James asked.
The man stood up and looked at Stalker carefully.
'Can we speak privately, please?' the man asked in a small voice.
'We'll step inside my office. This is my colleague, Ms Yates. You can speak freely in front of her.'
James moved forward with his keys out and the man stepped aside so that he could open the door. The three of them filed into the office and took seats around the desk. 'How can we help?' James asked.
Stalker felt uncomfortable, the man didn't smell human and he was entirely too rat-like in his features for her liking. He looked at them both suspiciously for a moment and his eyes kept darting to the door.
'I need your help,' he said at last. 'I can help you in return.'
James looked at Stalker, caution all over his face.
'Can you be a little more specific?' he asked.
'I know who you are,' the man said, sounding a little threatening. 'Lightning Lords.'
Stalker glanced at James again, he was totally unphased.
'And?' he said coolly.
'I know what you are trying to do and I am willing to help you. I have no love of the Doctor and his grand ambitions, but it is the Red Minister that I want to see perish.'
'Who is the Red Minister?' Stalker asked, taken aback by news of another player.
'A leader of my kind. If he is dispatched, I move in to his place and a thousand of my kind are diverted from the Plague Doctor's army.'
'So you want our help in taking down the Red Minister, and in so doing we weaken our enemy?' James asked, laying it all out clearly.
'That's right.'
'We will need to speak to the rest of our pack,' Stalker said. She didn't trust this man one jot and was not going to allow them to commit to anything without checking with the others and trying to verify this man's story.
'Of course,' the rat man said with a bow of his head.
'What's your name?' James asked.
'Raigo,' he replied, twitching uncomfortably.
James stood up and Raigo nervously copied.
'Meet with me later, in the Tap and Barrel with the rest of your kin, and we can discuss the details. I already have a plan.'
'Okay,' replied James. 'I know the place. We'll meet you there in two hours.'
Raigo nodded and scurried from the room. Stalker followed him and watched him run down the stairs and out of the door.
'Well?' she asked.
'He was telling the truth.'
'Is that your PI experience talking?'
'No,' he gave her a small smile. 'My gift from Artemis.'
'Well you are just full of useful surprises.' Stalker grinned at him. 'So we head over to Grove Street and run this by the others and then head to the pub?'
'Yeah. This could be just the break we need.'
They left again, locked up and headed for home at a brisk walk. Stalker wanted to believe that they had caught a break, but she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something amiss.
They got back to Grove Street and found Weaver and Wind Talker working in the garden, doing more of the work that Stalker had started when they first moved in. Eyes was at chambers for the day. Stalker called him and was relieved when he answered his phone.
'Hi, we have a significant lead and need everyone together for an important meeting. Can you get away?' she asked.
'I'm just finishing up here, I can be there in about an hour,' he said and hung up the phone.
James filled the others in and his enthusiasm was infectious. By the time Eyes arrived, the four of them were buzzing with optimism.
'We'll need to hear what his plan is and have some sort of assurance that he will keep his army out of the fight when we hit the Plague Doctor,' Eyes said. 'But it does sound promising.'
The five of them headed back out at 4pm and walked to the nearby pub, the Tap and Barrel. They went inside and found Raigo sitting at a table with two other similarly ratty figures, and hung back slightly.
'He didn't say anything about friends, but I guess it's only fair. There are five of us,' James said quietly.
James led the way over to the table. It was a dark pub, a proper “old man's” pub, that served real ales, had exposed beams overhead and smelled of tobacco and old fashioned cologne. A few people sat at the bar and a solitary barman was stacking glasses; they were all chatting loudly to each other.
'Thank you for coming,' Raigo said, standing to greet them. 'Won't you please join us?'
Everyone began to sit down, but Wind Talker remained s
tanding.
'Shall I get a round of drinks?' he asked. Eyes and James asked for whatever was on tap but Stalker just wanted water, she wanted a clear head for whatever lay ahead.
'I'll give you a hand,' Weaver offered and went with him to the bar.
They sat in awkward silence and waited for the others to return with the drinks. When they did, Weaver had a bottled fruit drink, and they tried to make themselves comfortable on the small wooden stools. Stalker tried not to laugh at the strange group sat around one small table.
'So,' James said, looking Raigo in the eye. 'What is your plan?'
'There is a body, of great importance. The Red Minister is charged with protecting it at a separate location to the Plague Doctor's nest. We can ambush him and destroy him,' Raigo replied.
'A body?' Eyes asked sharply. Stalker glanced at him, his face was unreadable but she knew he was thinking the same thing she was: the body of the doctor that was taken from the plague pit. It was almost certainly the thing that was helping the Plague Doctor to remain in this realm, rather than being sucked back into his demon realm, Muspelheim.
'A body,' Raigo repeated. 'I don't know why it is significant, only that it is.'
'Where is it being held?' Stalker asked.
'The Circle,' one of the other rat-men replied.
'Ugh. Why?' James asked, dropping his head into his hand. The Circle was a particularly horrible part of St. Mark's. It was an old, abandoned block of flats that stood in a circle with a courtyard in the centre. It was frequented now by drug users and prostitutes, and the inhabited neighbourhood around it was no better. Even the police never went there if they could help it. There was a sick irony that it was the last place you passed through on your way to Crossway, the wealthy neighbourhood where Eyes lived.
'It is secluded and your kind never go there,' Raigo said with a smirk.
'Fair enough,' Eyes said. 'When do we strike?'
'Tomorrow night,' Raigo replied. 'We will meet you there, just outside, and lead you to the Red Minister.'
'What sort of numbers will we be facing?' Wind Talker asked, sipping his beer.
'A small contingent, probably a dozen or so of those of us that can take human form. There will be half a dozen larger combatants and a small swarm.'
Stalker looked at Eyes with raised eyebrows. A small contingent?
'Those numbers don't sound so small,' Eyes said pointedly.
'Perhaps not to your kind, but to us they are. We normally count our number in hundreds, I am having to think quite carefully about my words in order to give you accurate information.'
'What sort of capabilities do your kind have? Is there anything you can tell us that will help us to make this a swift fight?' Stalker asked.
'Focus on the Red Minister, he is the leader. Take him out and the rest will fall into utter disarray and follow me away. Watch out for the bite of the hybrids, they are poisonous.' Raigo was smiling a sickly sweet smile. Stalker didn't like it one bit.
'Thank you,' Weaver said, nodding at all three of them. 'Why are you doing this? Isn't this a betrayal?'
'No, the Red Minister has betrayed our kind by falling under the thrall of the Plague Doctor. We are simply trying to set our own house in order.' Raigo's voice became more of a vicious hiss that set Stalker's teeth on edge.
'Very well,' Eyes said, his voice steady but firm in an apparent attempt to ease the sudden tension. Stalker took a deep breath and flexed her fingers, surprised at the amount of stiffness in them. 'And we have your word that you and your followers will not turn on us in this combat, or when we strike the Plague Doctor?' Eyes asked, his eyes sharp. James was watching Raigo carefully and Stalker kept her attention on the other two. Their faces were absolutely unreadable.
'You have my word,' Raigo replied.
James gave Eyes a slight nod to let him know that Raigo was telling the truth.
'Very well,' Eyes said after a moment's consideration. 'We will agree to this temporary alliance.'
'Excellent,' Raigo said with a smile. 'We will meet you outside The Circle at 8pm tomorrow.'
He and his fellows stood and took their leave.
'I don't like it,' Stalker said quietly when they had gone.
'Neither do I,' Eyes said. 'But we will take what we can get and proceed with great caution.'
'Weaver, try this, it's really good.' Wind Talker passed Weaver his beer and she took a sip.
'Hmm, yeah, that is good.' She took another gulp and then passed it back.
They all sat and finished their drinks while they quietly talked over the plan.
They moved back to Grove Street and stayed up late talking and drinking. It was great to spend time together and Stalker fell asleep in the small hours just as Eyes was heading home to his family. She felt Weaver shift and curl up next to her, Wind Talker likewise slept on the floor with them and James again fell asleep in his human form on the sofa.
When Stalker woke she sensed something was wrong before she was fully conscious. It was the noise first, and then the smell. She opened her eyes and looked around. Weaver was lying next to her clutching her stomach and moaning. Wind Talker and James were nowhere to be seen, but she could hear them both in the kitchen being violently sick.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Stalker shifted form. She felt fine, except for the standard passive nausea that she felt whenever she was around anyone who was sick.
'Weaver,' she whispered, reaching out and gently touching her pack sister's shoulder. Weaver looked up at her through milky eyes. 'What's going on?'
'So sick,' Weaver moaned. Stalker stroked Weaver's hair and slowly stood up and made her way to the kitchen. James was hunched over the sink and Wind Talker was slumped in the back doorway.
'At least you both made it out of the living room,' Stalker said with a wry smile. Wind Talker turned his head to look at her. He looked like the living dead. 'So, poisoned?'
'Poisoned,' groaned James from the sink, his voice echoing around the metal basin.
'Don't drink the beer,' Stalker chided. 'I'll go check out the pub. Back soon.'
Stalker left the house and jogged to the Tap and Barrel. It was still early in the morning and the place was dark and quiet. She slipped around the back and shifted into a sleek, grey wolf. Sniffing her way, she found the entrance to the cellar; it stank of rats. She looked around, there was no one in sight and the cellar entrance was hidden from the road by a high wooden fence around the small courtyard. Stalker shifted into a bear, and with a huge fist smashed open the cellar door. The wood splintered, barely hanging on at the hinges.
She shifted back into her wolf form and crept cautiously down the stone steps into the cellar. A couple of rats skittered away from her into the pitch black shadows and she stopped in her tracks. The only light came from the murky early morning daylight spilling in through the shattered door. She listened and sniffed for a moment. There was no movement, the only sound was the slow, monotonous drip, drip, drip of a leaking barrel. Aside from a handful of seemingly mundane rats, the cellar was empty.
Inching slowly across the cobblestone floor, Stalker found her way to a row of massive beer barrels. There was a distinct and unpleasant smell of demonic rat all over each barrel, just one by the smell of it, and it wasn't Raigo or any of his friends. She found the leaking one and sniffed the little pool of beer that was forming underneath. It was tainted with blood, poisoned rat blood. Who knew how many humans had drunk the contaminated beer.
Shifting back into the bear, Stalker slammed her fist into the nearest barrel, shattering the wood and spilling the beer in a cascade all over the floor. She rampaged around the cellar, destroying every barrel. The floor was soon a foot deep in the foul smelling liquid and she lumbered to the stairs, shifting form as she scrambled up them. As she burst out into the courtyard Stalker realised that she needed to alert the police. She looked around and saw a battered old pay phone on the corner outside the courtyard. She went to it, looking around anxiously, and hurrie
dly left an anonymous tip about the contamination. She hung up the phone before any awkward questions could be asked and walked swiftly away.
She was almost back at the house when her phone rang. It was Eyes.
'Hey there,' she said in a falsely bright voice. 'How are you feeling this morning?'
'Like the dead,' he groaned. 'I take it you guys are all sick too?'
'Not me,' she said, a little too cheerfully. 'I didn't drink the beer. It was poisoned. I've dealt with that already but it looks like we'll need to find a cure for you guys.'
'I'm going to head over to the house now, if I can stop being sick for twenty minutes.' Eyes made a strange noise at the other end of the phone, somewhere between a cough and slurp, and Stalker grimaced.
'Nice,' she said. 'See you when you get here.'
She hung up and entered the house a minute later. Everyone seemed to be slightly improved. James had dragged himself to his laptop to research what kind of poison it might be.
'The beer barrels were contaminated, I smashed them all up.' She reported back to the pack.
'The question is, who is responsible?' Wind Talker said, no trace of surprise in his voice.
'Not Raigo,' Weaver said from her curled up position on the sofa. 'He seemed to genuinely want our help. It makes no sense for him to have poisoned us.'
'The smell wasn't him or either of his companions,' Stalker told them. 'It was another rat.'
'It must have been the Red Minister,' Weaver said with absolute certainty. 'He must have got wind of our meeting and tried to intervene, take us out of the equation.'
'I agree,' Wind Talker said.
'We have to get you lot in fighting form in time for the ambush tonight. It's the last thing the Red Minister will expect.' Stalker fetched Wind Talker a bottle of bleach for him to clean up after himself and James, then went to sit with Weaver while she lay shaking on the sofa.
'I'm all right,' Weaver said weakly. 'I haven't been as sick as them.'
'You look awful,' Stalker said as sympathetically as she could manage. 'We need to know if this is a straightforward human disease or poison, or if it's demonic. What do you think?'
'It'll be demonic, and our bodies should burn it off in a few hours. It's the humans who were drinking there that we should worry about. They might not recover without a spiritual cure. Human medicine might not help at all.'