by Roy Gill
“Something like that.”
“Commendable to see you facing up to your responsibilities. Stick with me, young sir, and good things will happen. Work hard! Don’t ask questions. In no time at all, you shall have a promotion. The Odyssey won’t be a single store forever.” Grey’s face contorted into a ghastly leer. “I have such plans for expansion…”
That had been three years ago.
Three years that had passed in a blur of squeaking conveyer belts, and the hefting and carrying of endless boxes and parcels.
Same old, same old, thought Cameron.
But part of him thought it wasn’t ‘same old’ at all.
He felt sometimes there was some other place he should be, something else he should be doing, but what?
These feelings weren’t exactly new. He’d had them almost as long as he could remember. He’d never entirely fitted in… not back at school, not in his second home with his cold grandma, and certainly not in the Odyssey warehouse.
And what happened to people who didn’t fit in?
“You can’t change the world, so you must change yourself,” Mr Grey said whenever he caught Cameron daydreaming. “Learn to conform – or go under.”
“Yes, Mr Grey,” Cameron would say automatically. He didn’t see any alternative.
Today, as he clocked-on, he saw Grey was giving his usual dreary welcoming speech to a new recruit: a stocky older boy with messy fair hair. The boy had a look of utter boredom on his face. He caught Cameron’s eye and yawned massively, exposing surprisingly sharp teeth.
Cameron looked away, fearing trouble, but Grey didn’t seem to notice. He gestured at the recruit’s scruffy biker boots, “Those are non-regulation, and as for the hair…” His chins shook with disapproval. “Keep it contained, or better still, get it cut. Otherwise there will be no hope for you.”
As Grey retreated to his office, the boy plucked off his cap and stuck his fingers up in a rude gesture behind Grey’s back.
“You don’t want to do that,” Cameron murmured. “Grey’s got cameras hidden everywhere. He’s always scanning the recordings.”
The boy shrugged. “Like I care. I’m not going to be here long. I got plans.”
“I had those once. When I was younger.”
The boy arched an eyebrow. “You’re not exactly ancient.” He thrust out a hand. “I’m –”
An image of a white wolf, running through the night, and a name. Mo –
“–Morgan, by the way. How long have you been in hell?”
“Cameron. And about three years.”
Morgan adopted an incredulous expression. “How do you stand it?”
Cameron shrugged. “Don’t have much choice.” He gestured to the single big LCD screen that hung over them like a watchful eye. “Come on, store’s open. That’s the first order coming up. I’ll better show you how this works.”
They moved down the dingy aisles. Morgan lifted his nose and sniffed. “It’s kind of damp in here. Mouldy.”
“That’s why the stuff’s all wrapped up in plastic. But everything Grey sells stinks a bit.”
“So old Grey sells shonky goods. You amaze me.”
“Every Odyssey needs a monster. At least he’s not a flesh-eating cyclops.”
“Huh?”
“The Odyssey. The store’s named after an ancient story by Homer. It’s an epic quest with giants and sirens and killer whirlpools and all sorts.”
The boy threw him a calculating look. “You’re smart. Why are you here, exactly?”
“Didn’t get the grades. Long story. What’s your excuse?”
“Need some money. But it’s just work. I’m more about the sounds.” Morgan gave a lop-sided grin. “I’m in a band.”
“Oh yeah?” Cameron tried to keep the flicker of jealousy out his voice. There’d been a time, not so very long ago really, when he’d get ideas for songs running through his head. He’d wanted to be in a band more than anything else in the world. It had been all he dreamed about and –
music could open up another world to him, but –
he didn’t have much time for that now.
“What’s your band called?
“The Pack. Or Full Moon.” Morgan looked sheepish. “We keep changing. Lately it’s Wolf Month… Or Werewolf Parallel.”
“I like Wolf Month. Short and punchy.”
“Yeah, me too. But the guys think it’s too subtle. People won’t get it.” Morgan pulled a face. He thumbed a photocopied sign tacked to the end of a row of stacking cabinets. “Down here, right?”
“Yup,” said Cameron absently, thinking of Morgan’s band. “So you’re into the whole werewolf thing, then? Do you go on stage all big sideburns, quiffs and pointy teeth?”
“Well obviously. Because that wouldn’t be at all lame.” Morgan slanted a glance at him. “The name’s more about what the music does to you when you’re playing, and really feeling it, you know?”
Cameron remembered what that had been like. Just losing yourself in sound…
“Not really,” he lied.
“Oh man, it’s the best. Sets free the real you – the one you usually have to hide inside…” Morgan stopped dead in his tracks. “J7 P10 X12.”
“What?”
“This is the aisle, dafty.” He peered up the teetering stacks into the darkness. “Looks like it’s all the way up.”
“It’s ok. I’ll get a ladder.” That queasy feeling was rising in Cameron’s guts again – the nagging sense there was something hugely important he was forgetting or missing out on. He pushed the thought away, found the nearest set of metal steps and rolled them along to the required bay.
“I used to play guitar a bit,” he ventured. “Just acoustic. I never got an amp,”
Morgan started to climb. “What happened?”
“Gave it up. Too much effort. Takes practice and time.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t any good really.”
“Oh… Bet you are.”
Cameron laughed. “Oh yeah? How do you know? You’ve never heard me play a note.”
“Just a feeling. I saw that look in your eye when I was talking. Like you wanted to be in The Pack –”
“Or Werewolf Parallels or whatever you’re calling yourselves today –”
“Why not? If that’s what you want.”
Cameron blushed and said nothing.
“You’d need to be free at night. We’re just starting to get gigs, maybe one a month. We’re playing this evening at The Alhambra. It’s a converted cinema, but of a dump, but –” Morgan paused and whooped. “Oh no way. I know what J7 P10 X12 is.” He clattered back down the steel steps holding a guitar-shaped bundle. “It’s an acoustic! Like you used to play. What say we cut it open, and you show me what you can do?”
“You mean – an audition?”
“Sure!”
Cameron’s heart was pounding. There was something about the guitar in its plastic cocoon that made him feel as if he was standing on the edge of a cliff and daring himself to leap off. “Nah, we’d get in trouble with Grey. He’d kill us.”
Morgan made a dismissive noise. He ferreted in his pocket and produced a brass key. “Here. I’ll get it open –”
An impossible two-faced man held out a key. “Now pay attention, wolf-boys; three times only the Omniclavis will work –”
“There should be sparkles,” Cameron said.
“You what?”
“Something a friend of mine says. Here, don’t mess up your door key.” He dug in his trouser pocket and drew out a penknife he used for cutting packaging. A strange thrill ran through him as he held the knife, poised to slice the wrapping open. “I’m not sure we should be doing this.”
“Live a little.” The boy grinned wolfishly. “It’ll be worth it to have that music running through your veins again, going wild –”
“Mr Morgan, you are dismissed.” Grey’s voice thundered out of the warehouse’s PA system and Cameron’s knife clattered to the floor. “Security has been called and are on their way.”
There was the rhythmic stomp of heavy boots on concrete floors. Guards were approaching from either end of the long aisle. To Cameron’s mind, they resembled squatter, uglier clones of Grey. There was something freakish about that – the way his heavies looked just like him…
“You will be escorted from the building,” Grey’s amplified voice announced.
“Not flaming likely.” Morgan started to hurl boxes from the lower racks, creating an escape tunnel to the next aisle through the back of the open shelving. “Come on, what are you waiting for?”
“I can’t.” Cameron held back, watching. “This is it. This is my job. I can’t just go running away with some mad grunger.”
“Your call, mate. I’m not hanging around to be thrown out. Wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.” Morgan flung himself into the gap, and began to wriggle through dextrously. “Remember, we’re playing The Alhambra tonight, if you change your mind.”
He dropped to the ground on the other side with a thump. The grim-faced guards spun on their respective heels, and began remorselessly to retrace their steps.
“And what of you, Cameron Duffy?” Grey’s voice boomed. “Will you follow your ruffian friend?”
“No.” Cameron looked down at his trainers. “I can’t.”
Grey laughed. “I see my trust in you was not misplaced. Why, with a few more years’ toil, I might consider moving you upwards. And if you keep going – and really apply yourself – one day you could be just like me. Another Mr Grey! How would you like that?”
“Just like you?” Cameron felt sick.
“Oh yes. I have a way of spotting talent, of absorbing the best… In the end, I always get what I want.”
A grey puffball grew and grew, drawing in the instruments that they desperately flung at it, forcing them back and out into the street, –
“I could never be like you,” Cameron shouted. He snatched up the discarded guitar, and ripped open its wrapping. Memories were flooding through him, of songs and freedom and music, of the person he was really meant to be. “This feeling I have that I don’t fit in… Maybe that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with me. Maybe it just means I was meant to find somewhere better.”
Grey’s disembodied voice raged from the speakers. “I warn you, boy; if you touch that you will pay for it. You will never stop paying for it!”
Cameron ignored him. A tune was forming in his head, a song with a rocking, strolling rhythm that spoke to him of somewhere else, far away from his dull life here – a place filled with danger and monsters and excitement.
Maybe Morgan would let him play it at the Alhambra, with Werewolf Parallel…
His fingers formed a pattern on the fretboard. He lifted his other hand to strum the strings – and with that chord, the whole world changed…
CHAPTER 14
The Wolf is Woken
“A good choice, playing the guitar.”
Cameron was sitting on a pile of skins at the back of a draughty cave, his hands clutching at midair. An old man with tufted white hair and intense blue eyes was watching him with an expression of wry amusement.
“Personally I favour the fiddle, but still…”
Cameron’s arms dropped to his sides. He opened his mouth but the old man lifted a bony finger and made a sibilant shushing sound. “Don’t go saying anything daft like ‘where am I?’ or ‘what’s going on?’ or ‘what sort of fur is this, because it’s awffy cosy?’ Those would count as first questions and that’s what I’m bound to answer. You’d be amazed how many folks waste their chance. You may only go through the ordeal once.”
“The warehouse… Eve and Morgan and the guitar,” said Cameron, as the meaning of the old man’s speech sunk in. “That was the tes–”
“For your sake, laddie, I’m going to assume that was a statement, not a question. Your last warning, mark you!” The old man grinned impishly, baring his few remaining teeth. “That was the test, yes, and I am Cutler, also known as the Augur of Calton Hill.”
Cameron rubbed his eyes, fighting the impulse to ask how long he’d been imagining his other life. “It felt real, like I’d been there forever.”
“It was an ordeal, laddie. What were you expecting? High Tea with jam and scones?”
“No, but –”
“That comes after.” Cutler hobbled to a low table. “Well, it would if I had any. I have to rely on what my birds can forage.” He returned with a broken oatcake and a glass of something brown and brackish.
“It’ll do ye good,” he admonished, observing Cameron’s sceptical expression. “Now tell me, laddie – and never mind the year, because at my age they’re all much the same, just a wee bit chillier or warmer – what’s the date in the Human World outside?”
“January 27th, I think,” said Cameron through a mouthful of stale oatcake. “Or it was when I came here.”
“Aye, that would figure. You’re deep in the wolf month now. That’s what they called it, when the cold is at its worst, and things grow desperate and dark, and you face the greatest chance of being consumed by a wolf…” The old man looked at Cameron shrewdly. “That holds true for the wolf inside too. Now ask your question.”
“I passed the…” Cameron bit his tongue and swiftly re-arranged his words. “I get a question, because I passed the test. That was definitely a statement, by the way.”
“Well caught,” said Cutler. “Yes. You faced your greatest fear.”
“So my fear is,” Cameron fought to keep all hint of questioning incredulity out his voice, “I end up working in a catalogue store.”
“No. You fear that you will lose all that makes you different, become an ordinary human again, and so be forced to return to the world you left behind.”
“Oh.” Cameron considered the Augur’s words – and realised their truth.
Since his dad had died, he’d been thrown into a Parallel realm of mayhem and magic that was dangerous, but kind of wonderful as well. For the past year, running wild on wolf nights and taking over his gran’s old business with Eve and Morgan, he’d felt like he’d found his place at last. He had no wish to go back to his previous life at all. What was there for him now? Only his school friend Amy, and although he liked and cared for her, sometimes she reminded him a little too much of his old problems. The Augur’s ordeal – although it had been surreal and dreamlike – had also been the closest he had come to ‘real life’ in quite some time…
“To be fair,” Cameron said, “that is pretty scary.”
“Still… you triumphed. You gave them what for.”
“But all I did was pick up a guitar! It wasn’t anything special.”
“It was enough. The choice revealed your true nature.” The Augur’s finger prodded Cameron’s forehead. “Music runs through you as strongly as the wolf does, and it may outlast it – if the wolf has other plans.”
“Other plans!” Cameron swallowed. “That’s mad. You’re talking like it’s a separate thing. The wolf is me. It’s just me. It’s me when I change.”
“That was how it began, but that’s not all it is now.” The Augur’s eyes glittered. “Your Were-side comes not only from the wolf-boy who saved your life, but from the Parallel itself.” He waved his wrinkled claw of a hand. “Remember…”
A vision leapt into Cameron’s mind, of that last night on Arthur’s Seat with his treacherous grandmother.
She’d opened a portal that led to the ancient heart of the Parallel. As the power coursed, he had grown weaker and she had grown stronger. Morgan had prowled and raged in wolf-form, unable to help, until at last a desperate solution presented itself.
“No, Morgan, not her! Bite me, bite me!”
“The Parallel was part of the wolf’s birth, and its claim is very strong indeed. It has gifted you a champion. Why do you think your powers exceed that of other Weres?”
“No.” Cameron’s brow knitted. He didn’t want to hear this. “The shifts happen when I need them, that’s all. Like he’s watching out for m
e –”
“And who would ‘he’ be?”
“The wolf inside, of course. The other me…” Cameron tailed off.
The Augur nodded. “You’ve already sensed it. The wolf has woken. He knows who he must protect, and who he must fight. He has already started to slip free, and run by himself.”
“That’s not true! It can’t be.”
“He led you to me, did he not? You followed his shadow, all the way to Calton Hill, after he saved your friend.”
The stab of recognition that accompanied his every glance at the wolf… It wasn’t just Cameron who’d thought it was familiar – Morgan had tracked the wolf’s scent and Eve had known him too. Cameron had felt its presence leave his mind when Eve was in danger, and return as he had world-shifted through to the Parallel, up by the monument on Calton Hill.
He had to face it. The wolf was him – but it wasn’t him as well. Somehow his wolf-side was getting out of control.
“What’s going to happen to me?” he blurted – and clapped his hand over his mouth. “No, that’s not it! That’s not my question! I take it back!”
“You cannot. It’s been asked.”
The Augur turned and shuffled towards the mouth of the cave. Cameron hurried after, pulling himself up sharp as he realised the opening gave onto a sheer drop. Beneath a glowering dark green sky lay the Parallel version of the city: its teetering towers, domes and tenements a twisted, higgledy-piggeldy reflection of its Human World counterpart. He had never seen the Parallel from such a vantage point before, but any pleasure he might have felt was short-lived. A familiar low wolfish moan sounded in his ear as he realised, one by one, the city’s lights were fading out.
“The Greys approach,” said Cutler. “Daemonkind are fleeing the Parallel for the safety of their own world. Soon even the Augury will be under threat.”
“That makes it worse.” Cameron rubbed at his chest with his fist. “I meant to ask how to save the Parallel. That’s what I planned. I’ve let everyone down.”