Werewolves of the Other London

by Amy Cross

  "Yes, Sir," said Withers. "I suppose that would be cruel. Better just to kill them all."

  "Exactly," said Chaucer. He grabbed the data from Withers' hands and look through it impatiently. If he was being honest, he'd have to admit that a lot of it was too complex for him to really understand. But honesty was never Chaucer's strength. "Leave me alone for five minutes, eh Withers?"

  Knowing better than to argue, Withers got to his feet and headed to the door. He'd got used to Chaucer requesting regular time alone, and he didn't question it, not publicly at least. He kept his eye on Chaucer, though, because he felt the man was unstable. Withers had almost gone to his superiors to talk about his concerns on several occasions, but had always held back, had always

  Chaucer waited until he was sure he was alone, and then he pulled a small box from his pocket. Opening the lid, he pulled out a syringe, already loaded with a clear liquid. He held it up to the light and looked at it, unable to believe that such power and strength could look so innocuous. Then he rolled up the sleeve of his jacket and quickly injected himself, and then he put the box away.

  He stood and waited for the sensation to hit him. It only took a few seconds, and he was overwhelmed by a feeling of immense strength. Power was coursing through his veins, entering his heart. Changing him. Improving him. He smiled. He knew he was not ready yet, but he also knew that it was getting stronger and stronger inside him. It was growing. And when the time was right, he would show the world what he had become. And the world would be awed by him, and would respect him, and would know his name. And that - even more than the simple extermination of the werewolf species - would be what would give Chaucer his place in history.

  As the feeling subsided, Chaucer took a deep breath. He was so close to perfection. Just a few more hours to wait. Everything was coming together perfectly. Hell, he didn't even care about Captain Lucas anymore. Bring him on. Let him witness this final victory. Chaucer was ready for anything, ready to deal with all his enemies at once. And he had the perfect activity to keep him busy during those last few hours. With a great sense of anticipation, he decided it was time to do what he had been waiting to do for so long, time to say the words that had haunted his dreams. It was time to give the final order for the complete destruction of the last werewolves.

  Jess

  It's so quiet. You'd never believe there's a war on.

  We're in the Great Hall of the werewolves. It's the only building on the entire estate, but it's impressive. Great pillars rise toward a high ceiling, and the floor - though cracked a little - retains most of its marble. It looks like a once-grand place that has now fallen into ruin. I can fully believe that once, many years ago, this was a place where proud werewolves gathered to talk. Today, though, it's ruined and old. It's a place for the last werewolves to make their final stand.

  What's more, it's an obvious place for that final stand. The humans will know that we're here. It feels as if we came to this Great Hall not because we believed it would give us a chance to win or even to survive, but because we believed it would be a fitting place for the werewolf species to finally be destroyed. It's as if the species has collectively accepted its fate and has come here to ensure that if they have to die, they will at least die with dignity. Looking around at the faces of the others, I don't see hope in any of their eyes. I just see resignation and despair. They're waiting for the end.

  For the first time in all of this, I really feel that we're going to lose. We're going to die.

  It doesn't help that Duncan has run off somewhere. He said he had to check something about the perimeter, so now I don't even have him available to help me, to talk to. And Darla's gone too. I feel as if the shock of everything is still with me, and will probably be with me until I die. I guess I won't get a chance to mourn Darla properly. There'll be no grave to visit, no time for solitary reflection or memories. With the adrenalin still coursing through my body, I just have this empty awareness of loss. And I know that Darla probably couldn't do anything to help, even if she had survived. But it would have helped to have her here.

  "Cheer up," says a voice nearby. I turn to find a guy sitting cross-legged on the floor a short distance away. "You know what they say," he adds in a thick Scottish accent. "It's always darkest before the dawn."

  "You think we have a chance?" I ask.

  He shakes his head. "No, but I think empty cliches might help make us feel better." He gets to his feet and comes over to me. He has a kind face. "The name's Hamish," he says.

  "Jess," I reply, though it feels silly to be bothering with these pleasantries. Why waste time introducing ourselves and getting to know each other, if we're just going to die in a few minutes?

  "You're with Duncan," he says.

  "Yeah."

  "And you were with Darla."

  I nod. "Did you know her?"

  "Aye. Me and Darla used to hang out a while back. In America, mainly. Fun girl. We got caught up in some stuff. Other people's stuff mainly. Vampires and stuff like that."

  "Seriously?" I ask. After all the werewolves I've met lately, and all the other creatures, the idea of a real vampire still kind of impresses me. "I'd like to meet a vampire."

  "Not sure you'd like to meet this vampire," Hamish says. "Nothing but trouble. Anyway, last I heard he's... indisposed at the moment."

  "You know any other vampires who might want to come and help us?" I ask.

  He shakes his head. "It's a bit late for calling in the cavalry," he says. "So how did you know Darla?"

  "I met her at a carnival," I say, smiling at how ridiculous it sounds.

  "A carnival?" he asks, surprised.

  "She was being kept in a cage and I helped her get out." I smile at the memory. It seems so long ago. Back then, I felt like I could do anything. Well, if I had Darla with me. We knocked Vigrous Grinde off his perch, defeated a Criad, shut down a building made out of a man, survived the Underworld, killed Thomas Lumic... I guess I was starting to believe that there was nothing we couldn't do. That we could survive anything.

  "Darla?" Hamish asks. "In a cage? Fucking hell, that must have been a sight."

  "She wasn't very happy about it," I say.

  "No fucking kidding," he replies.

  "She's dead now," I say.

  He nods. "Aye. I know." He sighs. "A lot of people are."

  "We going to die, aren't we?" I ask.

  He swallows hard. There's a worried look on his face. "Aye," he says. "There's a good chance that we are."

  "A good chance?" I say, surprised by his optimism. "Do you really think there's any way out of this?"

  He pauses, clearly not sure what to say, and then eventually he shakes his head.

  Nearby, the wolf cub that Darla saved is limping past. Just a child, it seems lost and confused, and no-one seems to be taking care of it. Then again, why bother? Why show it kindness now, just for that kindness to be wiped away when the humans attack?

  "His parents are dead," says Hamish. "Killed back there."

  "It's not right," I say.

  "Course it's not," he replies. "He watched 'em die. The same way Darla watched her parents die, the same way Duncan watched his parents die -"

  "Duncan watched his parents die?" I ask.

  Hamish nods. "When the humans were clearing out some of the smaller werewolf colonies. Duncan was lucky to escape with his life. But he saw his parents being slaughtered. Long time ago, though. I'm sure he's completely over it by now, eh?"

  "Sure," I say. "Darla too."

  "Darla's at peace now," Hamish says. "As long as I knew her, she was at war with herself. Like Duncan, she saw her parents die. But with Darla, something died inside her, something that never recovered. There was a kind of bitterness that she tried to cover with jokes and bad humor, but it came out sometimes. Anger, too. Whereas Duncan seems to have found a way to cope with his memories. God knows how. I could never... Where is he, anyway?"

  I shrug. "He went to check the perimeter or something."

/>   Hamish laughs. "Like that'll do anything. He should know that there's no point doing things like that."

  I pause, not sure whether it's appropriate to ask the next question. "I saw something," I say. "The other day, when Duncan was mourning a friend of his who had died."

  "Who was the friend?" Hamish asks.

  "His name was Garvey."

  Hamish nods. "I knew he was dead, but... how did it happen?"

  "He was poisoned," I say.

  Hamish seems genuinely troubled by this. "Aye," he says. "I haven't seen Garvey seen I gave him the slip just after we left Dedston -"

  "The point is," I say, interrupting, "when Duncan was mourning Garvey, I saw his silhouette and... for a moment, he turned into something else."

  "Aye," says Hamish. "We're werewolves. We tend to do that."

  "No. Something else," I say. "Not a wolf. Not a man. Something else. I couldn't see what, but... Do you have any idea?"

  Hamish shakes his head. "Where is the old bastard anyway? How long does it take to check a fucking perimeter?"

  "I guess he's still hoping there's time to come up with a plan," I say.

  Hamish nods. "Duncan's always been good at coming up with plans. Got us out of plenty of tight spots in the past. But..."

  "But what?" I ask.

  Hamish smiles sadly. "Everyone runs out of plans at some point," he says.

  Robin calls Hamish away, so I wander over to the injured wolf cub. I guess because he's so young, he's healing slowly. His side is bruised and one of his paws is cut and bleeding. He looks pathetic, and weak, and he stares at me as if he's begging me to help him. I guess he doesn't understand the situation that we're in, he doesn't know that everything is looking so hopeless.

  "Hey," I say, sitting next to him. "Don't worry. Everything's going to be okay." I instantly hate myself for saying that. There's no point giving the little guy false hope. Everything's not going to be okay. Everything's going to be very, very not okay.

  He stares at me for a moment, and then he shifts into his human form. A little boy with blonde hair and pain in his eyes, he keeps staring at me. "They're coming, aren't they?" he asks.

  "It'll be okay," I say.

  He tries to move, but the pain is too strong. He clutches his side. "It won't be okay," he says. "I saw what they did." He stares at me. "They killed my parents."

  I shake my head, but I don't know what to say. The kid's right. Is there any point trying to deny the truth? The humans were ready to kill him before Darla intervened, and there's no reason why they won't go all the way just as soon as they get their hands on him again. I look around the hall. There are about thirty werewolves gathered here now. It's hard to believe that the once proud werewolf species has been reduced to a gathering of just thirty or so survivors, waiting around in a hall until the humans come and finish exterminating them.

  "Hey," says a familiar voice behind me. I turn to find Duncan has returned. "How's it going in here?" he asks as he sits next to me. He has a kind of dazed, resigned look on his face. The funny thing is, I was hoping he'd return with lots of energy, with some crazy plan all worked out.

  "How do you expect?" I ask. "How's that plan of yours going?"

  "Working on it," he says weakly.

  "Time's running out," I say.

  "I know," he replies. There's tension in his voice, perhaps a little fear. "I'm working on it."

  I laugh. "You can't give up, can you?" I stop laughing, and it hits me: was that the last time I'll ever laugh?

  "You never know," he replies. "I might come up with something. It's worth a try, just in case."

  "Maybe you're wrong," I say.

  He turns to me and frowns.

  "You said there's always a way out of any situation," I say. "But maybe you were wrong. Maybe there's no way out of this situation. Maybe you're looking and looking, but the problem isn't that you can't see it. It's that there just isn't any way out." I suddenly remember the child sitting next to me, but when I turn, I see that he's wandering away. I look back at Duncan. "Maybe there's no way that the humans can be defeated."

  "Maybe," says Duncan. "So what do you think I should do? Bend over and kiss my own ass goodbye? Kiss your ass goodbye?"

  I shake my head. "No. But maybe... Look, these might be the last few minutes of any of our lives. Do you want to spend that time desperately trying to come up with a plan, or do you want to spend it... thinking about the things that are important to you?"

  He stares at me. "Like what?"

  "Like... I don't know like what, but maybe it's time to think about who you really are, and who in your life has been really important to you."

  He seems genuinely surprised by what I'm saying. "What about you?" he asks. "When I first met you, you were running from your parents. Why?"

  "It doesn't matter," I say.

  "Tell me," he says. "What did they do to you?"

  "Nothing," I reply. "Can we -"

  "What did you do to them?"

  I close my eyes for a moment. This isn't how I imagined the conversation going. Eventually I open my eyes. "I'm a bad person," I say. "A really, really bad person. I've done... terrible things to people who really loved me, people who really didn't deserve it. I don't want to talk about it, but my family are a lot better off without me. That's why I'm so desperate to get rid of the human side of my mind, to become fully like you."

  Duncan puts an arm around me. "I don't know what you did to your family," he says. "But I know one thing. You're not a bad person, and you never could be."

  "That's nice of you to say," I reply. "But I am. Or I was."

  He shakes his head. "I don't believe that."

  "You're an idiot," I say.

  "I know," he replies.

  There's a moment, just a moment, when neither of us says anything. We just sit there in the moment. And then, slowly, Duncan leans in and kisses me. We've kissed before. We've made love. But this is the first time he's ever kissed me properly, tenderly. It's a kiss with true feeling, true passion, maybe even true love. I guess I'm getting a little overly romantic here, but I've never kissed anyone like this before. And it seems to last forever, until suddenly he pulls away.

  "YES!!!" he shouts.

  "What?" I murmur.

  He turns to look across the Great Hall. "YES YES YES!!!" he shouts again. He grins at me, his eyes bright and alive. "I've got it!"

  "Got what?" I ask.

  Around us, other werewolves are starting to pay attention to Duncan's excitement.

  "A plan!" he shouts. "I've got a plan! The perfect plan! The perfect, perfect plan!"

  I stare at him, not sure what to say. "You want to share?" I ask.

  He smiles. "Okay, I'll admit... I had part of the plan already worked out, but there was a little part that I couldn't get right. I was... Oh, I'm so stupid sometimes. Stupid stupid stupid! I need... I need..."

  "You need to tell us what this plan is," says Robin, who has come over to us. "Right now."

  "We can do this!" Duncan says. "We just need a few things -"

  "What?" I ask.

  "A laptop," he says. "With an internet connection. And chickens. Lots of chickens. And... and... and some kind of sewing machine, and some fabric. Green, preferably, but we could make do with any dark color."

  "Seriously?" I ask.

  "Seriously," he says.

  "This is going to work?" I ask.

  "Yes!" Duncan shouts. "Okay, all we need is a little time to -"

  There's suddenly a huge explosion nearby and an entire side of the Great Hall crashes to the ground. Huge chunks of stone collapse, making an earth-shattering sound as they smash onto the marble floor. As smoke pours through the hole in the wall and human soldiers pour into the Great Hall, I look over at Duncan. There's total shock in his eyes. I don't doubt that he finally managed to come up with a plan, and I'd love to have heard the details, I really would. But I think it might all have been a little too late.

  Meanwhile

  "Pro
gress?" Withers barked into the radio.

  He waited. All he heard back was static.

  "Give them time," said Chaucer. He didn't like impatience. Having been trying to kill the werewolves for so many years, Chaucer understood that it would take time, and he didn't mind waiting a little longer. In fact, the anticipation of victory was almost as strong a sensation as victory itself. "A few more minutes won't make much difference."

  It had been ten minutes since a crack group of two dozen commandos had stormed the Great Hall. Smoke was now rising from the building as small fires broke out, and there was the occasional sound of gunfire. Chaucer remained outside, watching from a small mobile command unit. He had to keep track of the overall situation, to understand whether the operation was running as smoothly as possible. He had air support ready to call in if necessary. Hell, he could just bury the werewolves in that building if necessary. But he had every confidence in the commandos. They had been trained for a situation such as this. They were the best of the best, the top soldiers in the British army. Some of them had been in Iraq and Afghanistan. They were ready.

  "Something's wrong. They should be out by now," said Withers. He was more concerned than Chaucer, believing that the job would not be so easy.

  "Patience," Chaucer reminded him. "If a job is to be done properly -"

  "If they're not out in ninety seconds," Withers said, "something's wrong." He turned to Chaucer. "We have to consider sending in reinforcements."

  Chaucer sniffed. "Ninety seconds is a long time," he said. "Don't worry. I know these boys. They'll get the -"

  "There!" shouted Withers.

  A couple of commandos came running out, dragging a badly injured figure. They headed for the vaporizer and threw the body inside. The distinctive grinding noise rang out, followed by the flash of the body being destroyed for good.

  "Operation complete," said a crackling voice over the radio.

  "Casualties?" Withers asked urgently.

  "All the enemy accounted for," said the voice. "Hold." There was a pause. "At least one confirmed fatality on our side, possibly a couple more. Coming out now."