The Anxiety of Kalix the Werewolf

by Martin Millar

  Better, she thought, dragging herself to her feet. Her muscles ached as she ascended the stairs. There was no shower in the old flat, so she ran the bath. It gave her an opportunity to do push-ups in the privacy of the bathroom. Kalix had never done push-ups before, and was finding them too easy. Despite the scrawniness of her arms, she was still immensely strong. She remembered, a long time ago, seeing her brother Sarapen exercising in the castle. He’d done push-ups with weights on his back to make it harder. Kalix wondered if she could do something similar.

  Outside the sun was going down. Kalix flopped into the bath, and immediately changed into a werewolf. She lay soaking in the hot water, satisfied with her progress.

  The moon rose forty minutes later, far north at Castle MacRinnalch, where the members of the Great Council were gathering. Dominil and Thrix were talking as the changed happened; there was no break in their conversation, though their voices deepened in mid-sentence.

  “Perhaps you should start things off,” said Thrix. “I’ll just lose my temper again.”

  “I’m not in good standing with the council,” said Dominil. “It will be better if you lead. You can control your temper.”

  “I’ll try,” said Thrix, without much conviction.

  Thrix had been surprised, and jealous, when Dominil had returned from Colburn Woods bearing new sorcery from the Fairy Queen.

  “I can’t believe she gave you the ‘Maynista Princess Two Flower Pathway.’ How did you persuade her?”

  “I read one of our library books to find out what she liked.”

  The Enchantress swallowed her annoyance. They now had the means to infiltrate the Guild’s headquarters, and that was the most important thing.

  “So how do you feel after meeting Queen Dithean?” asked Thrix.

  “How exactly do you mean?”

  “Are your passions raging? She has that effect, especially when you meet her for the first time. Even more especially on a wolf night. There are plenty of virile young werewolves in the castle if you get an uncontrollable urge.”

  “I have never had an uncontrollable urge,” said Dominil.

  As soon as they arrived in the council chamber, Rainal called the meeting to order.

  “Our first business lies with Thrix MacRinnalch,” he said.

  Thrix addressed the assembled werewolves. “We now have a way of entering the Guild’s headquarters. Dominil was successful in persuading Quean Dithean to assist us.”

  “So we’re still going with the fairy magic?” said Baron MacGregor. Werewolf eyebrows were very faint, but they could still be noticeably raised, as his were.

  “Yes, to get us inside. After that, it’s up to us.”

  “You say Dominil succeeded?” said Baron Douglas MacAllister. “I thought you were going to see Queen Dithean?”

  “I did. I failed. Dominil managed to change her mind.”

  “That doesn’t seem to bode very well,” said the young Baron MacAllister. “You’re the one that can make her sorcery work. Why wouldn’t she help you?”

  “How do we know she really helped Dominil?” added Baron MacGregor. “What if it turns out to be something that doesn’t work?”

  Thrix had been determined to control herself. Unfortunately, at the first sign of opposition, her temper snapped. She leaped to her feet, crashed her fist on the table and launched into a tirade against cowardly barons who wanted to hide away while other werewolves were dying at the hand of the Guild. Once again, her fellow members of the council were startled at the speed with which Thrix lost control. Within seconds, Baron MacGregor was on his feet, roaring back at her. Baron MacPhee remained seated but joined in with the heated argument while others shouted at them to calm down. It was almost impossible for a werewolf under the full moon to remain completely calm while in the company of other werewolves who were so agitated, and in no time the council meeting had descended into chaos again. Howling werewolves rose from their chairs, crashing their fists on the table, shouting and growling. Crystal goblets tumbled to the floor and papers flew in the air. Dominil remained implacable, but none of the others did. Even Lucia, a very mild-mannered werewolf, found herself shouting at Baron MacAllister when he made some slighting reference to werewolves who didn’t care about the clan and just came to council meetings to cause trouble, an insult she was sure was aimed at her son Decembrius.

  It took Markus, Rainal and the Mistress of the Werewolves some time before they could calm everyone down.

  “We will discuss this in a civilized manner!” roared Markus. “Thrix, sit down! Baron MacGregor, you sit down as well.”

  “I’ll not have Thrix MacRinnalch insult me!” yelled the Baron. “I was fighting for the clan before she was born!”

  “Everyone sit down!” repeated Markus. “Are we unable to behave properly?”

  “I’d say it was mainly Thrix who’s unable to behave properly,” said Tupan. All eyes turned toward Thrix.

  “So it’s my fault?” she said, angrily.

  “Yes,” said Tupan. “The moment you hear something you don’t like you’re out of your chair, roaring and shouting.”

  Tupan, brother of the old Thane, would have liked to have been Thane himself. He’d never had the support for that to happen, but his voice was still influential.

  “Fine,” said Thrix. She sat down heavily. “I’ll try and control myself.”

  There was a silence, broken by the sound of papers being shuffled back into order and glasses being returned to the table. The heavy crystal tumblers were sturdy items, and could take a lot of abuse, which is why they were chosen for council meetings.

  “Perhaps Dominil could carry on for the meantime,” said Markus.

  Dominil nodded. “We’ve obtained a spell from Queen Dithean. Using it, we believe we can enter the Guild’s headquarters. Once there we will dispatch all hunters we find, and erase as many of their records as we can. By that I mean physically destroy their archives, and corrupt or destroy their computer records.”

  “How many werewolves do you need for this attack?”

  “Twenty, we think. We can get them into position in the hotel next door.”

  “Unseen?” Baron MacGregor was dubious. “That’s a lot of werewolves to gather without anyone noticing.”

  “We’ll introduce some of them as guests in the hotel, on the pretext of being a business party.”

  “Isn’t that going to raise suspicion?”

  “There’s no reason it should. Remember, the Guild has no idea we’re coming.”

  “I’d like to hear more about this help from Queen Dithean,” said Baron MacPhee. “What sort of spell is going to get us inside the building?”

  “Do you need every detail?” asked Thrix.

  “I think it would be helpful,” said the Mistress of the Werewolves.

  “Very well. It’s called the ‘Maynista Princess Two Flower Pathway.’ Using flowers supplied by Queen Dithean we’ll make a pathway from the hotel room to their headquarters.”

  Baron MacPhee wasn’t satisfied. He’d met the stone dwarves during the course of his very long life, and he knew what they were capable of. “So you just point this spell at the building and it cuts right through their defenses?”

  “Not exactly,” admitted Thrix. “We have to get one of the flowers inside the building.”

  “Inside? So someone has to go in first?”

  “Yes.”

  Those werewolves who’d been excited by news of the breakthrough were deflated, and those who’d been cynical had their reservations reinforced.

  “I thought the whole point of this was that we couldn’t get inside the building,” said Baron MacGregor.

  “It’s not impossible to enter in normal circumstances,” said Thrix. “Hunters go in and out. We just need one person to get inside, and conceal the flower somewhere.”

  “You mean send someone in disguised as a postman, or a plumber?” asked Markus.

  “Something like that.”

  “Surely no matt
er how a werewolf was disguised, they’d know it was a werewolf?” said the Mistress of the Werewolves. “Wouldn’t they?”

  “I think they probably would,” admitted Dominil. “The Avenaris Guild doesn’t use much sorcery, but they have sometimes detected werewolves in the past. I feel they must have some sort of alarm that will sound if a werewolf enters through the front door.”

  “So the whole thing is still hopeless,” said Baron MacAllister.

  Thrix felt her temper rising again. “Can’t you just trust us to work it out? We’ve managed everything else so far, haven’t we?”

  Baron Douglas MacAllister laughed. The young baron was not as opposed to the attack as some of the others, but his father and brother had died in the great feud, leaving him with a general dislike for Thane Markus and his family. “I don’t think I’d trust Thrix to go five minutes without screaming at everyone. That might be OK when she’s designing dresses, but it’s not much good for anything serious. As for Dominil, she’ll need her regular laudanum breaks, won’t she? It’s not really the greatest leadership.”

  Dominil didn’t react to the insult. Thrix did. She stood up, banging her fist on the table and shouting at Baron MacAllister, and once more there was uproar.

  CHAPTER 135

  In the early hours of the morning Dominil was alone in her room. The meeting had come to a disorderly end. No agreement had been reached. Dominil found it extremely frustrating. Tomorrow was the third of the wolf nights and the last night on which a council meeting could be convened. If they couldn’t come to an agreement then, further discussions would have to wait till the meeting at the next full moon.

  Thrix won’t wait, thought Dominil. If the council doesn’t authorize an attack, she’ll do it anyway.

  If Thrix did carry out an attack, Dominil would go with her. She didn’t like the thought, but she was intransigent in her own way. Dominil still carried a burden of guilt over the death of Minerva. She wanted revenge. She wouldn’t let her cousin attack alone.

  Dominil knew that they’d fail. Thrix still hoped to use sorcery inside the building, but everything they’d learned about the stone dwarves’ house suggested it would be impossible. There would be no magic, only the strength and ferocity of the MacRinnalchs. Two strong werewolves like Dominil and Thrix might do a lot of damage. They might kill a lot of hunters, but they’d be defeated in the end. They wouldn’t be able to deal the Avenaris Guild a fatal blow.

  Dominil reflected that if she were killed, she would not be missed much by anyone. The clan still shunned her. The Mistress of the Werewolves showed no sign of warming to her. She might not even be able to attend another council meeting. There was still talk of removing her from the council. She thought briefly of the twins, who had thrown beer in her face. Dominil hadn’t reacted when it happened. She wouldn’t allow the twins to see they could affect her, but they had. Dominil kept her emotions well hidden, but she felt a private sadness that Beauty and Delicious had ended up disliking her so much.

  She looked up, sensing that Thrix was approaching. She opened her door just as her cousin arrived.

  “Another useless meeting,” said Thrix.

  “We still have tomorrow,” said Dominil.

  Thrix sat on the bed. She smelled faintly of the clan whisky. “I thought with Markus on our side we’d get agreement but the barons seem set against it.”

  “They don’t want to send their werewolves to London.”

  “They should.”

  “I know they should, but they don’t want to. The clan hasn’t settled down as much as we thought. There are still resentments against Markus. Kurian and my father are just as bad as the barons.”

  “Looks like it’s just going to be us,” said Thrix. “And Decembrius, maybe.”

  “I haven’t given up hope of persuading the council,” said Dominil. “Perhaps we made a mistake, going to them before our plans were complete.”

  “We don’t have a complete plan,” said Thrix. “Unless you’ve thought of one in the past few hours.”

  “I have.”

  Thrix looked up sharply. “Really?”

  “Yes. We need to get someone inside the building to plant the other end of our pathway. We talked lightly of postmen and so on. I don’t see why that couldn’t work, provided it’s convincing. Merchant MacDoig does business with the Guild. What if we arranged for him to send some legitimate package to them? A courier carrying such a package could gain access to the building.”

  “Maybe. The Merchant would probably help.” Thrix frowned. “And he might just as easily sell us out.”

  “That would be a risk. But the MacRinnalchs are more valuable clients than the Guild. If the Thane or the Mistress of the Werewolves made the arrangement, I think he’d stick to it.”

  “Do you have any whisky?” asked Thrix.

  “Do you really need more?”

  “Don’t you start as well.”

  “As well as who?”

  “As well as my mother, who said I’m drinking too much.”

  Dominil produced her bottle of the clan malt from her cupboard and poured a small glass for Thrix, and one for herself.

  “So we send a package to the Guild,” said Thrix. “And the courier has the petal in their pocket. Once inside the building they hide it somewhere. That sounds good. But who’s going to take it in? You were probably right about them having some sort of warning system. An alarm will sound if a werewolf walks in.”

  “Kalix could do it.”

  “Kalix? That’s ridiculous.”

  “I don’t see why. She has her pendant. She’s the one werewolf who can never be detected.”

  Thrix considered this. “I suppose you’re right. I’d forgotten about Kalix’s pendant. It would conceal her from any sort of finding spell. And she’s quite resistant to sorcery anyway.”

  It had been noted in the past that Kalix did not seem to be much affected by sorcery, even by spells that affected other werewolves. No one knew why, though Thrix suspected it was to do with her unusual birth.

  “I can see problems,” said Thrix. “Even putting aside the fact that Kalix is bound to let us down, remember she’s fought with hunters all over London. She’s killed enough of them, but there are probably some left who’d recognize her. What if she walks straight into a hunter who’s seen her before?”

  “That would be a risk,” admitted Dominil. “But we don’t know what the inside of the Guild’s headquarters looks like. The front door probably just leads to a reception area. Whoever is on duty is unlikely to be a werewolf hunter. More likely it will be some civilian employee who’s never seen a werewolf before. If Kalix was suitably disguised she might be able to deliver the package without being detected.”

  “How would she hide the petal?”

  “She’d have to use her initiative.”

  “Kalix doesn’t have enough sense to have any initiative.”

  “You’re being too hard on Kalix and I have no desire to discuss your prejudices again,” said Dominil. “It’s a reasonable idea and we should present it to the council.”

  Thrix poured herself another drink, uninvited. “You can present it,” she muttered. “I’m not recommending Kalix for anything. I can see trouble with the barons. MacGregor and MacPhee still blame her for the old Thane’s death, and MacAllister doesn’t like any of our family.”

  “I’ll call Kalix tomorrow,” said Dominil. “If she agrees to my proposal, I’ll talk to Markus.”

  CHAPTER 136

  Moonglow was wrapped in a black dressing gown with a black towel round her hair when Kalix arrived in the living room around midday. Moonglow had washed her hair and was drinking tea while reading a book before engaging in the lengthy drying process.

  “Morning, Kalix.”

  Kalix joined her at the table by the window. Though it was a very old table, badly stained with age, it had taken on a cheerful, almost jaunty air, thanks to the vase of yellow flowers Moonglow had placed there, now illuminated by the sun’
s rays which streamed in through several holes in the net curtains.

  Kalix was dressed in her running vest. “Look,” she said, and flexed her bicep. “I’ve been exercising.”

  Moonglow thought that Kalix’s arms looked just as skinny as they always had, but nodded encouragingly.

  “It’s really making me feel better. I’ve been running and doing push-ups and I’m much healthier. And I ate loads last night when I was a werewolf and I don’t feel like throwing up at all.”

  “That’s really good.”

  “I should have tried getting healthy before, instead of all that stupid self-improvement stuff,” said Kalix. She poured herself a bowl of cereal, something she would not normally have done after a night of eating meat. Moonglow felt quietly pleased, though didn’t say anything, for fear of making Kalix think she was monitoring her diet. There was a loud banging upstairs.

  “It’s OK!” shouted Vex. “I fell out of the attic again but I didn’t hurt myself!”

  She ran down the stairs, smiling.

  “Trouble with your ladder again?” asked Moonglow.

  Vex nodded. “My feet got confused. It’s these shoes.”

  Unusually, Vex was wearing one of her many pairs of Hello Kitty running shoes, instead of boots.

  “Kalix looks so good in them I thought I’d try them as well.” Vex nimbly lifted her leg and planted her foot on the table. “See?”

  “Very nice,” said Moonglow.

  “Hey, Kalix is eating breakfast!” said Vex. “I knew we’d cheer her up with our wolf-night parties.”

  Kalix immediately felt sensitive about people watching her eat, and put her cereal bowl down.