Werewolves of the Other London

by Amy Cross

  Duncan blinks a couple of times. "Oh, that was you? Sorry, I thought I was dreaming." He gets to his feet, but immediately falls over. "Sorry," he says, "new legs. Really weird. Gonna have to take some time getting used to the new parts of my body."

  "I'll help you," I say, and I support him as he stands up again. "See?" I say. "I rescued you."

  "I'd have been fine," he says. "I'd have got out of here eventually."

  "Whatever," I say as we head to the door. "Just accept it. I rescued you. I. Rescued. You."

  "You helped me," he says. "Rescued is a very strong word."

  "Accurate, though," I say.

  "We're all entitled to our opinions," I say, and we struggle on. We've been in the Underworld long enough. It's time to get back up to the real world.

  Jess

  It's pouring with rain. Duncan, Darla and I stand by the freshly-dug grave, looking at the rich brown soil, thinking about Matt DiMera, who we just buried. Having found his bones when we emerged from the Underworld, it seemed only right to give him a proper funeral. We're not in a cemetery, of course, we're out in the woods. Somewhere fitting for the body of a werewolf.

  "Where are you going now?" Darla asks as we eventually walk away.

  "I don't know," I reply. I turn to Duncan. "Are we still leaving London?"

  "Of course," he says. "It's too dangerous in the city. It's dangerous anywhere, but we have to work out a strategy. It's not a good time to be a werewolf."

  Darla smiles. "I'm sure you'll be fine," she says.

  "You're coming with us," I say, stopping. "Aren't you?"

  Darla shakes her head. "I always said I was just coming up-country for a visit. I said I'd be going home, back to the carnival, and that's where I'm going. It's where I belong. And besides -" She grabs me and hugs me, and then she whispers in my ear. "You two need to be alone."

  We separate from the hug.

  "What did she whisper?" Duncan asks.

  "Nothing," Darla and I both say. Darla turns to Duncan and they shake hands. "Hurt Jess," Darla says, "and I'll track you down and make you suffer, do you understand?"

  "She'll be fine," Duncan says. "I don't think I could hurt her, even if I wanted to."

  There's a moment's pause. "See you around," Darla says, and then she turns and walks off across the grass.

  There's a part of me that wants to call out to her, to make her come with us instead. But there's another part of me that knows she has to go home, that she has to go where she feels she belongs. If I felt that I belonged somewhere like that, I'd go there too. Darla's lucky. She can go back to the carnival and spend her days with Stephen and Mena and all the other creatures.

  I turn to Duncan.

  "You're going to miss her, aren't you?" he says.

  "Yeah," I say. "I missed you too."

  We start walking in our own direction. "So what did you do after you left London?" he asks, putting an arm around my shoulder as we walk.

  "Well," I say, "it's a long story. I met a lot of crazy people. Darla. This guy called Vigrous Grinde, and a Criad. A guy whose head was trapped in a building. A guy with a giant pet worm. This witch named Azael -"

  "Azael?" Duncan says, suddenly stopping and turning to face me. He looks concerned. "You met Azael?"

  I nod. "Sure," I say. "Why?"

  He peers into my eyes. "Are you okay? What did she do to you. How did you get away?"

  I frown at him. "What are you talking about?" I ask. "She was nice to me. And then she kind of helped us defeat Lumic, but she was a bit pissed off at me so -"

  "Azael?" Duncan asks, as if he doesn't believe me. "Reddish hair? Curly? Accent? Living in the Underworld?"

  "Yeah," I say. "Do you know her?"

  There's a pause. "Azael is a false name that Black Annis uses," Duncan says. "But Black Annis just kills. She'd never have helped you."

  I shrug and we carry on walking. "Maybe she just liked me," I say.

  "Unlikely," Duncan replies.

  "Thanks."

  "You're welcome."

  We reach a spot from which we can see the whole of London sprawled out before us. It's a stunning sight, such a huge city, and it's hard to believe that the Underworld exists directly below it.

  "Will they be okay?" I ask. "The people in the Underworld?"

  "They'll be fine," Duncan says. "It's the ecotone we have to worry about."

  "The what?"

  Duncan takes a deep breath. "The overlap between the human and wolf worlds. The places where the human world is encroaching on the wolf world." He turns to me. "The ecotone is under threat, and then everything will be in danger. We have to..." He pauses, then slowly he leans in and kisses me. A proper kiss, lasting a couple of minutes, deep and sensual, his tongue reaching into my mouth and meeting my tongue. Finally he pulls away a little. "You've got no idea how many times I almost did that in the past," he says.

  "Uh huh," I say, completely shocked.

  "Thanks for rescuing me," he says.

  I nod. "It's fine."

  "And thanks for helping me get rid of my master."

  "I'm glad you're free," I say.

  "It feels weird," he says. He smiles. "We have to be careful," he says. "We have to keep looking over our shoulders. We have to be careful who we trust. And we have to run."

  "Okay," I say.

  "Okay," he replies. "Run!" he shouts, and we turn and run, and run, and run, faster and faster than I've ever run before, bounding across the field so fast that I don't notice anything changing until I happen to glance over and notice that Duncan has shifted into his wolf form. Surprised, I look down and see my own paws. I've shifted into my own wolf form, without even thinking about it. I guess I'm getting better at being a werewolf, and it has certain advantages. It's certainly much easier to run. And it feels like nothing can ever go wrong.

  Epilogue

  Trafalgar Square, London

  Hundreds of people crowd through the square, taking photos of one another, buying guide books, and generally enjoying the sights. It's a warm day, the sun beating down, and the air is thick with the smell of sun-cream. The fountains are running and some people have taken the opportunity to go paddling in the water. A couple of armed security officers patrol the crowd, looking bored. It's a picture postcard day, the kind of day that makes you glad to be a Londoner as red double decker buses zoom past and pigeons sit on the heads of statues, looking down at the curious humans.

  Everything looks perfectly normal.

  No-one notices the man in the denim jacket as he enters the square from the northern steps. He wanders alone through the crowd, looking like just another tourist. He stops to buy an ice cream, and then he eats it as he wanders past the fountain toward the base of Nelson's Column itself. Finishing his ice cream, he carefully puts the wrapper into a bin, even taking the trouble to pick up someone else's wrapper that has fallen nearby. A model citizen. A good guy.

  The two security guards wander past and one of them glances at the man, but only for a second. He doesn't notice anything unusual. There isn't anything unusual to notice. As the guards wander off, their machine guns hanging from straps over their shoulders, the man glances in their direction, making sure that they're not suspicious.

  The man smiles. Just a little. Just for a moment. Then he casually reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small glass vial filled with a clear liquid. He rolls it between his fingers for a moment and thinks of the power that he has. Just the slightest pressure and the glass would break, and... For a moment, he wonders if he has the right to do this. Why should he be the one to decide that so many people have to die? The responsibility weight heavily on him for a moment, but then he remembers why he's here. The greater good. The greater purpose. The need to deliver the strongest possible message.

  So he drops the vial.

  He immediately starts to walk away, not waiting to listen for the sound of the glass smashing. But he knows it has already smashed, and it's already doing its work. As he hurries across th
e square, the man finds it hard to stop smiling. His heart is racing, and he knows it will only be a couple of seconds before...

  The explosion is huge. A massive fireball rips across the square, blowing people apart and sending blood and body parts flying through the air. Several statues are destroyed, toppling over and crushing people. The flames cover everything, but despite the force of the explosion it's all over in less than a couple of seconds. Now all that remains is a moment of brief silence before the screaming and crying starts. People run. In order to look like them, the man runs too. It's chaos. Hundreds of people are stampeding away from where the explosion happened.

  The man turns and looks back. He sees smoke filling the square, and he sees that many of the people running away are covered in blood. The man smiles again. His job is done, and the flames are raging, the blood is flowing. But those aren't the real threat. The real threat is carried on the wind, being breathed in by people far beyond Trafalgar Square.

  The war has begun. The war that has been coming for centuries between humans and werewolves.

  Part Four

  Ecotone

  Prologue 1

  - and running with the sound of the explosion still ringing in my ears and I look back but I can't see my mother anywhere and there are sirens and alarms ringing everywhere and then a man runs straight into me and knocks me to the ground and he doesn't stop and I feel something wet in my ear and I put my hand there and then I find there's blood on my hand and I'm bleeding and I get to my feet and start to run but then there's another explosion in the building right next to me and the big shop window shatters and the glass flies at me and cuts me all over and I fall to the ground again and then -

  Prologue 2

  My name is Darla.

  Today, I found my entire family dead. Slaughtered. Murdered. Ripped to pieces and burnt, then ground into the dust. Their bones have been left scattered around the field. their flesh is long gone. There is nothing left but ash.

  There are signs that they were tortured first. There is blood on the walls of some of the tents, and most of the bodies seem to have been tied up. They were probably tortured by people who were looking for me. So in a way, it's my fault that they're dead. If I'd just been here... Well, they'd still be dead, but at least they wouldn't have been tortured. At least they wouldn't have died screaming.

  This was once a happy place. A carnival. Even when Vigrous Grinde was running it for the benefit of his evil little friend, there were good times to be had. I'd never had a family before, but people like Stephen and Allegra and, yes, even Vigrous Grinde himself, became more of a family than most people ever get. I felt I belonged here. Even when I went to London with Jess, I always felt I was being called back here to the carnival. And now it's gone.

  I head to Mena's tent. Although she and I were never close, I came to understand her. Climbing the steps to the top of her water tank, I prepare myself for the worst. And when I get up there and look into the water, it's so much more horrible than I could have ever imagined. There's just blood, everywhere. So much blood, it's almost impossible to believe it all came from one mermaid.

  "Hey," says a weak voice. I look down and see Mena looking up at me. She's ripped to shreds, most of her flesh gone, her face carved away to reveal just the skull. But she's still alive. Somehow. Even though her beauty is gone.

  "What happened?" I ask, kneeling by the side of the tank. I feel numb. Completely unable to take anything in. Even the horror of Mena's injuries can't break me down, can't make me cry.

  "Men came," she says, her voice rasping. "Soldiers. They killed everyone, and they burned them."

  "Everyone?" I ask.

  "Everyone," she says. "Stephen. Vigrous. Allegra. The Tenderlings and their children. Everyone. I heard their screams for three days and nights."

  "They were looking for me," I whisper.

  "It doesn't matter," Mena says. "I knew you'd come back eventually. I waited for you, so I could tell you. And now..." She takes a deep, rasping breath.

  "Don't!" I say, reaching out to her, but she recoils. "Don't die," I say, almost pleading with her. "Please don't die."

  "Sorry," she says. "I have no choice. But hey -" She lifts the bodies of two soldiers out of the pool of blood. Their faces are frozen in terror, their bodies are slashed and drained of blood. "At least I took two of them with me." She drops the bodies and they sink. "Is Jess okay?" she asks.

  I nod. "She's fine," I say.

  "Did she find her friend?"

  "Duncan? Yeah, she found him."

  Mena sighs. "I'm sorry."

  "Why?"

  "If she hadn't found him, she'd still need you."

  I pause, not sure what to say. "She loves him," I say finally.

  "Everyone loves someone," Mena says. "Even if it's the wrong person."

  "Yeah, well..." My voice tapers off. "We can't do much about that, can we?"

  Although her face is hacked away, although she's little more than muscle and bone, Mena seems to almost smile. "Tell Jess I said goodbye," she says. "Tell her I missed her. And tell her to be careful."

  "I will," I say, taking a deep breath. "I'm so sorry I wasn't here, Mena. Maybe I could have done something."

  "You couldn't," she says. "There were so many of them. The humans are going to kill us all."

  "We'll fight," I say.

  Mena shakes her head. "You can't. They're too strong. There are too many of them. They have too many weapons, and they're too smart. Too cruel."

  "We'll fucking fight," I say firmly. "They can't get away with just wiping out all the other species. We'll fight them."

  "We fought them," Mena says. "When they came. We fought and fought, but we couldn't do anything. In the end, though we fought, we lost. We died."

  "We have to keep fighting," I say.

  "You'll waste your final days," she replies. "Better to stop fighting and -"

  "And what?" I shout at her. "Sit down and die? Let them do to me what they've done to you? No fucking way! I'm gonna fight. Me, and Jess, and Duncan too, we're gonna fight. Okay?"

  Mena stares at me for a moment. "Good luck," she says finally, sounding sad. "Maybe you'll find a way to stop them. Maybe not. Either way, it's too late for me. See you on the other side." And with that, she relaxes, lets out a slow death rattle, and the life fades from her eyes. Slowly, she sinks beneath the bloody water until finally there's no sign of her.

  I sit there, on the edge of this tank of blood, watching as the ripples of the water subside. Soon the surface is flat and calm, still red and bloody but otherwise undisturbed.

  Staring into the depths, I have no idea what to do. Yes, I should go and find Jess. I need to warn her. But I have no idea where she is. And it might be too late anyway. Like Mena said, maybe we can't fight. Maybe the humans will just exterminate us all. That's what they've always wanted. Even while the truce was on, there was tension. And now the truce is over. The humans are on the rampage, and none of the other species are safe. Werewolves. Tenderlings. Golvs. Criads. Antipedes. Mermaids. The Blessed Ones. All just targets for the humans' guns. Even the Underworld, eventually, will be destroyed. This is the war that was always foretold. The war that was always coming. The war that can only end in death. But we're going to fight. People will die, but it won't be us. We're going to fight and we're going to show them that they can't just pick us off like this. No matter how bad things look right now, we're going to win this war.

  Prologue 3

  "Margaret!" I shout, banging on her door.

  But, as has been the case for the past week or so, there's no answer. Still, I'm sure she's in there, I hear her breathing at night, she's just avoiding me. And now that the rent is long overdue, I have every right to enter the room and remove her belonging. I feel bad, being so harsh with an old woman, but it's quite clear that she's not going to talk to me properly so I have no other choice. I fumble about in my pocket for the key, eventually fishing it and putting it in the lock.

  "Margaret!
" I shout again, "I'm giving you one final chance to open this door and talk to me properly, or I'm coming in!"

  Silence.

  I hear someone behind me. Turning, I find that the man from apartment 4B has come out into the corridor.

  "Everything alright?" he asks.

  "Fine, Walter," I say.

  "Something wrong with Margaret?" he asks.

  "No, Walter," I say, trying not to sound impatient. Walter's a good tenant, always pays his rent on time. Then again, until recently I'd have said the same thing about Margaret. "You can go back inside, Walter," I add.

  He frowns, clearly curious about what's going on.

  "This is a private matter, Walter," I say.

  He nods and reluctantly goes back into his room, shutting the door slowly. I know he's loitering in his hallway, listening out to hear what happens when I go into Margaret's room. But I can't help that. And I have nothing to hide, no reason to be embarrassed. It's Margaret who should be worried.

  "Okay," I say firmly. "I'm coming in."

  I push the door open, and I'm surprised to find Margaret sitting on the edge of her bed, fully dressed, looking across the room at a small box that sits on her night-stand. She seems totally transfixed, unable to take her eyes away from it.

  "Margaret," I say calmly, "is everything okay?"

  She doesn't answer, doesn't even look at me, doesn't even acknowledge my presence. In fact, she's not even blinking, even though I can tell that she's breathing. Something's definitely wrong. I'm not sure how old she is - fifties, maybe even sixties - but I can't help wondering if she's had a stroke, or if she's somehow got one of those diseases where worms get in your brain and start tunneling. She just seems... blank and empty.

  "Okay, Margaret," I say, kneeling in front of her. "Can you try to look at me? Can you tell me if you remember my name?"

  I hear a noise nearby and look over to see Walter has come back out of his apartment. "Everything alright?" he asks.