Werewolves of the Other London

by Amy Cross

  Spotting a door into one of the buildings, I rush inside and soon I find a set of steps. I rush up, with Azael following me, and we soon reach the roof where I last saw Darla. But there's no sign of her, just two distinct patches of blood on the ground: the first, mine, is small and spotty; the second, Darla's, is much larger... She lost a lot of blood. She'll be able to recover, of course, unless the Flesh Weaver goes through with the idea of eating her.

  "I came here to rescue my friend," I say plaintively. "And now I've lost my other friend as well. We've only been here an hour or so."

  "The Underworld's a dangerous place," Azael says, putting a hand on my shoulder.

  "You do okay," I say, turning to her. "How do you survive? How did you get that Flesh Weaver to leave me alone?"

  "I know their weak spot," she says, grinning. "Kick 'em in the balls." She pauses. "Seriously, I've learned a trick or two. I can teach you if you like."

  "I won't be staying," I say. "I'm here to rescue my friend -"

  "Which one?" Azael asks. "The one you came down here to rescue, or the one you lost after you got here?"

  I stare at her. It's almost as if she's finding the whole situation amusing. "Both," I say firmly.

  "Don't take this the wrong way," she replies, her voice taking on a serious tone, "but you've got no chance. The best you can do is pick one and pray you get a lucky break. If you try to go for them both, none of you's gonna get out of here alive."

  I look at the patch of Darla's blood. "I'll take my chances," I say.

  "I like that," Azael says, coming over and putting an arm around my shoulder. "You refuse to give up, even when the odds are stacked against you. So I tell you what. I'll give you a hand. I'll let you in on a few secrets, like how to make a Flesh Weaver leave you alone. That way, at least you've got a fighting chance of surviving for the next few hours. Deal?"

  An hour later, sitting in Azael's home, I warm my hands on a fire. It's getting dark outside, obviously not because of the sun but because the phosphorescent moss on the walls is going through the 'down' phase of its circadian rhythm. Azael has prepared some food for me, some kind of moss broth, which sounds un-appetising but actually smells pretty good as it's on her stove, bubbling away.

  "I've been down here for a long, long time," Azael says as we wait for the broth to be ready. There's something in her voice that makes me believe her instantly; though she seems fairly young, like she's in her early 30s, she has a weight and a heft to her voice that sounds ancient. "Too long. But I have to stay here now -"

  "Why?" I ask, interrupting.

  She shakes her head. "I just do. I can't go home. Not ever."

  "I know the feeling," I say.

  She smiles. "I have a life down here. I eat well, I'm safe, I study the creatures." She takes a book from a table and hands it to me. "I've become quite the zoologist," she says as I look through page after page of hand-drawn sketches of what look like unimaginable creatures. "I study them. I learn how they work. That's one of the reasons I knew how to get rid of that Flesh Weaver. So I keep busy. And there's so many things living down here, I'll never get finished with my work."

  "What are you"? I ask.

  She gives me a curious look.

  "I mean..."I pause. "Sorry, that sounded rude. But you're obviously not human."

  She smiles. "I'm... well, there are lots of names for things like me. The most common is 'witch'. So you can call me a witch if you like, even though I can't do any magic. Magic isn't real. Science, though, I'm very good at. Very, very good at. And you know what?" She takes the book from my hands and closes it. "If you know scientific facts that other people don't know, and you use them right, it looks like magic."

  "You could still leave," I say.

  "No," she says.

  "You don't want to," I continue. "You choose to stay down here. But you could, if you wanted, just walk out of here and go back to the surface world."

  "And maybe I will one day," she says, her voice suddenly sounding awkward and uncomfortable. "When I'm ready." She stirs the broth. "You could leave too. You could walk out of the Underworld right now."

  "I can't," I say. "I have to save my friends."

  "Like I said," she says, a hint of sadness in her voice, "you're gonna have to choose one. You can't rescue them both."

  I open my mouth to reply, but instead I think about what she's saying. I can't leave Duncan down here, I just can't. I came all this way to save him. But what about Darla? Don't I owe it to her to get her out of this mess? And if I choose to save Darla... then what?

  "You're in love," Azael says.

  "No!" I shoot back.

  "Aye, you are," she says. "With this Duncan guy. What do you think, are you and he gonna get married one day and raise little humans?"

  "We're not human," I say. "We're werewolves."

  Azael raises an eyebrow. "Really?" she says. "Well I did wonder, but it's nice to have it confirmed. I don't get to meet many werewolves down here these days." She pours some broth into a bowl for me. "But you're gonna have to face up to the truth. If you decide to rescue Duncan, there are consequences to that decision. And one of the consequences is that you will never be able to rescue Darla as well. She hands me the bowl of broth. "Choose wisely."

  Lumic

  The Flesh Weaver screams, an ear-piercing scream that echoes around us. I lean down and bite a chunk of flesh from its face. It flails about beneath me as I remain on its chest, holding it down. In my wolf form, I'm more than a match for even a large Flesh Weaver such as this one. I can torture him all night if necessary, and I wouldn't mind. Torturing these creatures is fun, because they bleed so readily and they produce new blood almost instantly to replace any that is lost. Bleeding out a Flesh Weaver is a difficult task, and a long one, but I don't mind challenges.

  "I can smell them on you," I say, speaking even though I am in my wolf form. "The two girls who came here. I can smell their blood on your knives. Do you have them?"

  The Flesh Weaver stares at me, its dark eyes burning with hatred. I lean down and clamp my jaws around one of its eyes and rip it from the socket, spitting it out onto the ground. Blood pours from the wound and the creature screams again, struggling, fighting back at me with all its power. But it's useless: it's dying, and it knows this. All it can do now is give me what I want so that I at least grant this miserable animal a painless death. But still it holds out on me. Still it stubbornly refuses to give me what I want.

  "I can track them," I say firmly. "But I'm giving you the chance to help me. Make my life a little easier, and I'll make your death a little more bearable."

  But the creature just screams. It's as if, as it faces its final moments, all reason has left its mind. It screams and it screams and it screams, out of fear and panic and terror. If only Flesh Weavers weren't such solitary creatures, perhaps some of its brothers might come to help it. But if any of them hear its screams, they will just take the cue to stay well away. No, this creature has always lived alone, and it will die alone, with my jaws around its throat. Fortunately, Flesh Weavers are easier to kill than werewolves.

  "I gave you a choice," I snarl at the miserable animal. "Remember that as I destroy you."

  It screams again, and it tries to throw me off, and this time it actually manages to almost dislodge me, but I keep my grip and - deciding that enough is enough - I sink my teeth into its head, clamp my jaws tight and rip half of its face off. As it continues to scream, I chew away at its skull until I crack the bone open, and then I bite off the front of its brain. The screaming stops, it spasms one final time, and finally it is dead.

  I spit the piece of brain to the ground and climb off the creature's dead body. Wiping the blood from my face, I sniff the air. It's strange, the girls seem to have separated. I didn't expect that. Either way, I feel that this time I need to be very careful as I prepare to kill Duncan. This time, I can leave no loose ends. These girls could be a complication. I'll kill them first, just to make sure that things remain s
imple.

  Jess

  "How far can you take me?" I ask Azael after I've eaten. "Can you help me get to where Duncan is hiding?"

  She nods. "I don't have the same powers of perception as you. I don't know where he is. But if you can give me a rough idea, I can certainly help you get closer. Whether I can help you get all the way... that is another matter." She pauses. "So... it's Duncan that you've chosen?"

  I shake my head. "I haven't chosen anyone. I just think it'll be easier to save Darla if I can find Duncan first. He can help me. I don't fancy going up against that Flesh Weaver again, not by myself."

  "Oh, I can help you with Flesh Weavers," Darla says. "I'm just... I don't quite understand why you're so desperate to save Duncan. I don't understand what he is to you."

  "He's my friend," I say.

  "How long have you known him?"

  "Not long," I say. "I arrived in London a while ago and -"

  "He turned you!" Azael says suddenly, seeming shocked. "My God, that's what it is. You weren't born a werewolf, were you? You were turned, by this Duncan individual."

  I nod. "So what?"

  "He's your master!" Azael exclaims.

  I raise my eyebrows. "He bloody isn't," I say.

  "He is!" she says. "The one who is turned to the brotherhood of the wolves after being born a man, is bound to serve the one who is responsible for the change, no matter what, and to call him Master."

  I shake my head. "He's not my master. He's just my friend, and I want to help him."

  She smiles. "If you say so," she says. "But that doesn't change the fact that he's the one who made you what you are. And for that, you'll always have a debt of loyalty to him." She pauses. "I don't know where your friend Duncan is. I have no idea. But your other friend -"

  "Darla," I say.

  "Darla," she continues, "I know where she'll be. If she's still alive, which isn't certain by any means. But I know where that Flesh Weaver will have taken her. It's not far from here. Flesh Weavers don't roam far from home. I can take you, if you like, but you should be warned. The chances of finding her alive are not great. The Flesh Weaver will have had his Loom People take your friend to his home. Then, when he got home, he would have got to work on her. So the -"

  "Okay," I say firmly, cutting in. "I get it. But let's try."

  Azael looks over at the window. "It's night. A dangerous time to be out on the streets." She turns to me. "Better wrap up warm."

  ***

  With the phosphorescent moss sleeping, the streets are bathed in an eerie dark blue light. As Azael and I walk, the whole city seems empty. I mean, sure it seemed empty during the day, but now it seems more empty. And Azael was right, it's much colder. I wouldn't like to be out here alone, so I'm kind of glad to have Azael here with me, even if there's something about her that slightly creeps me out.

  Every so often, Azael signals for me to stop walking, and we duck into an abandoned building while some kind of creature goes past. Azael mentions all these names - Golvs, Bog Babies, Petty's Darlings - that mean nothing to me, though occasionally she adds one that I've heard of, like Tenderlings or Criads. The way she describes these things, they sound like horrific beasts, but she acts as if they're little more than annoyances. For example, she talks about Golvs having teeth in their eyes so that they can better see what they're eating, and she says to keep clear of them, but then we spot one of the distance and she says to just keep walking and act like we haven't seen it.

  At one point, though, she does seem to be genuinely worried. We've been walking for about two hours when suddenly she stops, listening. There's a sound nearby, a kind of slurping, sticky sound, and suddenly a huge worm slithers into view ahead of us, horns on its head and a mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth.

  "Antipede," says Azael, her voice filled with tension.

  "You fear my pet?" says a deep, dark voice from behind us. We turn to find a man smiling at us. He looks friendly enough, neat and smart with slicked-back black hair and wearing the kind of suit you'd see on a door-to-door salesman. "He's harmless. We're just out for a walk."

  "Just going about our business," Azael says tersely. "Nothing for you to worry about."

  The man grins at me. "Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?"

  There's silence for a moment.

  "Jess, meet Wormwood," Azael says reluctantly.

  Wormwood holds out a hand for me to shake. Not sure what to do, I reciprocate. His skin is extremely warm, almost too hot to touch, but otherwise he seems reassuringly friendly and human. Of course, I've learned not to trust things based on their appearance, so I'm fully prepared for this nice-looking guy to turn out to be the anti-Christ or something like that.

  "So Jess," he says, "you must tell me. What is a nice girl like you doing down in the Underworld, consorting with such creatures?"

  I hear a slobbering sound over my shoulder, and I glance back to see the huge worm is right behind us.

  "I'm looking for my friends," I say.

  "Of course," Wormwood says. "That's the only reason people ever come down here these days. To look for friends who have been unfortunate enough to slip down here through the cracks in the London pavements."

  "We need to hurry," Azael says.

  "Well, I would join you," Wormwood replies merrily. He stands there, waiting for an invitation. Eventually he coughs. "But Bertie and I have a lot to do so we'll have to be scooting along."

  "Bertie?" I ask, then I remember the huge worm. "Bertie," I say quietly. "Right."

  "Come along, Bertie," says Wormwood.

  I step aside as the huge worm slithers between me and Azael, following its master.

  "Oh, one more thing," Wormwood says. "I heard that Thomas Lumic is down here again."

  "I suspected as much," Azael says.

  Wormwood nods. "Just thought you'd like the good news confirmed." He turns to me. "You should be more careful about the company you keep," he sneers before heading off with his huge worm following him.

  "Ignore him," Azael says, clearly troubled and unsettled. "He's just a fool. He's one of the few down here who could actually leave if he wanted. But he prefers to stay here with that giant worm and just..." She seems genuinely annoyed. "Like I said, ignore him."

  We walk on, but I can't help wondering what Wormwood meant when he told me to be more careful about the company I keep. He didn't seem to like Azael too much, but given that he seems to spend his days with a giant worm, I'm not sure I should put too much faith in his opinions.

  "Don't let Wormwood get to you," Azael says, as if she's somehow sensed that I'm trouble by what he said. "He lives for the thrill of playing games. He likes to say the opposite of what you expect, just to throw you. He causes trouble. That's all he does. It amuses him. But you mustn't listen to him, okay?"

  "Sure," I say.

  We stop suddenly. Ahead of us is the entrance to what appears to be a cave. I turn to Azael and see that she has a concerned look on her face.

  "Is this is?" I ask.

  She nods. "But you have to remember, the odds of finding your friend Darla alive aren't very high. You have to -"

  "I understand," I say, pushing past. I head toward the entrance of the cave, but Azael pulls me back.

  "Keep your damned head on," she says, sounding annoyed. "Remember which of us knows how to deal with a Flesh Weaver, okay? If he's in there, he won't like being interrupted." She steps past me and leads the way into the darkness of the cave.

  Lumic

  The Golv's neck snaps as I slam it against the wall. It lets out a scream, which I quickly silence by biting out its vocal chords. I raise the pathetic creature above my head and throw it to the ground, and it immediately tries to crawl away. I watch for a moment, until it is a few meters from me, and then I stride over and haul it up again, this time biting the back of its neck. With each attack, I'm careful not to sever its jugular. I want this wretched creature to suffer a slow, agonizing death. I want it to beg for mercy. I want it to
wish it had never been born.

  My blood-lust is not chaotic or random. I am preparing for my final showdown with Duncan, for which I must be fully blooded. This means killing plenty of minor creatures along the way, in order to soak myself in their blood and heighten my sense. Only then will I be in the heightened state necessary to allow me to rip Duncan apart with the full rage and fury that he deserves.

  The other reason I am killing so many creatures is that I need to build up an appetite. Eating Matt DiMera might have been a good start to my journey, but he is a little heavy in my stomach and the more I fight, the faster I'll finish digesting him. Perhaps a more patient man than I would have killed DiMera in some other way, or would even have let him live. But I have never been a patient man. I am a man who knows what he wants, and goes for it. Today I want Duncan dead. For the final time. And I will be satisfied.

  The Golv reaches a futile hand up to try to stop me from hurting it. I just smile at the poor beast. But then I see the life drain from its eyes. I haul it up into my arms and scream at it, demanding that it does not die yet. But it's too late. After holding the lifeless creature for a moment, I snap its back and throw it to one side. I am close to Duncan, but I need to kill a few more times before I am fully ready for the final battle.

  Jess

  At first, it's hard to see anything. The cave is so poorly lit, it just seems like a total mass of blackness. But after a moment, my eyes begin to adjust to the low light level. In fact, I can soon see pretty well, as if my werewolf qualities are helping to compensate. There are shapes in the darkness. Tables, other items, and things hanging on the wall. It's a strange place, half wild and half tame. These Flesh Weavers clearly aren't quite the kind of raw, aggressive animals I thought they were.