The Noose Of A New Moon (Wolfbrand Book 1)

by Helen Harper

  ‘I don’t need any help.’ He glanced at Gaz. ‘You can get yourself home now, if you want.’

  He didn’t miss the look of relief on Gaz’s face. ‘Are you sure? Because…’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Devereau said shortly.

  Gaz nodded and turned, trotting away as quickly as he could before clambering into his car and switching on the engine. He offered a single guilty wave and drove off.

  Scarlett the sexy vampire had been right about one thing, Devereau reminded himself: he’d brought this on himself. He’d connived to be turned into a werewolf and now he had to suck up the consequences. Fortunately, he was more than man enough to meet the challenge.

  Ignoring the ugly lace curtains that were twitching in at least three of the other houses along the street, he strode up to his new front door. He’d barely set foot across the threshold when he heard the rumble of several engines approaching. Several expensive engines.

  He glanced round and saw three sleek black cars pulling up. Well, well, well. The werewolf clans were bringing out the big guns – and they were working together. This would be interesting.

  The driver of the first car stepped out and walked round to open the passenger door. Devereau wasn’t surprised to see Lady Sullivan, the alpha wolf of the Sullivan clan, step out. Her steel-grey hair was pulled back into a severe bun and her iron-hard eyes flicked once at him before glancing towards the other cars. Their doors opened to reveal Lady Carr and Lord McGuigan.

  None of them were smiling so Devereau plastered on the cheesiest grin he could muster. ‘A welcome party! How lovely! I expect the ticker-tape parade in my honour will be happening later. Is no one from Clan Fairfax coming?’

  Not one of the werewolf alphas reacted; instead they strode up and formed a semi-circle around him.

  ‘I didn’t realise that werewolves were famous for their marching bands,’ Devereau drawled. ‘There’s no other way you could have learned those sorts of synchronised movements.’ He pointed at Lord McGuigan. ‘Piccolo, right?’ He glanced at Lady Sullivan. ‘And I’m betting you’re a triangle kind of gal.’

  Lady Sullivan inspected her fingernails. ‘Your pathetic attempts at humour aren’t going to impress us, Mr Webb.’

  ‘Please,’ he said, ‘call me Devereau. We’re all friends here.’ He paused deliberately. ‘Right?’

  Lord McGuigan folded his arms. ‘We’ve been waiting to talk to you in person for some time now. Let’s just get to the point, shall we? How many times were you bitten before you turned?’

  ‘That’s already been covered.’

  Lady Sullivan sniffed. ‘Just answer the question.’

  Fine. ‘Four times.’

  ‘We only have a record of one bite, which occurred when you deliberately antagonised a Sullivan wolf.’

  Devereau shrugged. ‘Well, I can guarantee I received four bites, one from each Clan. I’m an equal opportunities kind of guy, you see.’

  ‘That’s not possible.’ Lord McGuigan glared at him, clearly convinced he was lying. ‘Our records are very detailed. They have to be. We always know exactly who has been bitten and when. You were bitten once, by one werewolf.’

  ‘Let’s just say,’ Devereau replied, ‘that I made use of a certain potion that encourages … absentmindedness in others.’

  ‘What potion?’ Lady Sullivan snapped. ‘What are you talking about?’

  A potion that was far too dangerous to speak of; a potion that enabled the drinker to re-live the same twelve-hour period up to four times. ‘I couldn’t possibly say.’

  McGuigan let out a loud snort. ‘He’s probably too embarrassed to admit that he’s so weak it took only one bite to start his initial transformation.’

  ‘Except,’ Lady Carr purred, ‘nobody, no matter who they are, is turned after only one bite.’ She broke away from the semi-circle, moved towards Devereau and reached out to stroke his arm. He didn’t react. ‘Devereau Webb, get onto your knees.’ Suddenly there was an odd note in her voice.

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Why would I do that?’

  Lord McGuigan frowned. ‘Your compulsion doesn’t work, Lady Carr. That means he is strong after all.’

  Devereau grinned.

  ‘Let’s set aside the question of Mr Webb’s bites for now and move on to Regent’s Park,’ Lady Sullivan said. She looked at him coolly. ‘You possess the rights to its use during the full moon.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Once upon a time, you offered us those rights.’

  ‘I did.’

  Her gaze hardened further. ‘What do you want for them now?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  McGuigan jerked. ‘You’ll give them to us for free?’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ Devereau said. He smiled broadly. He was enjoying this.

  ‘Join me,’ Lady Carr told him. ‘Join Clan Carr and you’ll receive considerable bonuses in return. We’ll rank you immediately. No other wolf has ever received such a boon, most have to fight for their right to become a ranking wolf.’

  ‘You only want the park rights,’ McGuigan sneered. ‘You’ll leapfrog our traditions and rules just to feather your own cap.’

  ‘You mean you won’t?’ Lady Carr shot back.

  ‘I have a better idea,’ Lady Sullivan interrupted. ‘Hand over Regent’s Park to me, and I’ll see to it that you don’t meet an untimely end.’

  Devereau gazed at her. ‘Why, Lady Sullivan, I do believe you just threatened me.’

  For the first time she smiled. ‘Why, Mr Webb,’ she trilled, ‘that was no threat. That was a promise.’

  Devereau looked from one clan alpha to the next. ‘You know, until now I had no idea what I was going to do. I was open to all options. But your visit has helped me to make up my mind.’

  ‘And?’ Lord McGuigan demanded.

  ‘None of you has impressed me enough to want to join your clans. And none of you has frightened me enough, either.’

  Lady Sullivan snorted. ‘If you think that you can waltz into Clan Fairfax and take the top spot as alpha because it happens to be free, you’re sorely mistaken. We wolves don’t work that way.’

  Devereau laughed. ‘I’m not interested in Clan Fairfax. In fact, I think I’m going to keep Regent’s Park for myself.’

  ‘And what?’ she scoffed. ‘You certainly can’t start your own clan, if that’s what you’re thinking. The humans will never allow it. You’ll end up a lone wolf, and what you fail to realise is that we’re pack animals by nature. Before the new moon appears, you’ll be begging to join us.’

  ‘Well,’ Devereau said, ‘I’ll guess we’ll just have to see about that.’

  The three alphas were clearly rivals rather than allies, yet they exchanged glances that suggested they were considering banding together to bring him down right then and there. In the middle of the street. In broad daylight.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Devereau saw one of his new neighbour’s curtains twitch again. He hadn’t got this far in life without knowing when to raise his fists and when to back down from a fight. He smiled and waved at the window. ‘People around here are very nosy,’ he said to no one in particular.

  Lady Carr met his eyes. ‘I have the feeling that you planned this. You were never going to agree to join one of our clans.’

  ‘Do you know, I think you might be right,’ Devereau said softly.

  There was a sudden loud beep. Lady Sullivan’s brow creased and she withdrew a slim, silver-coloured phone. At the same time, the driver from McGuigan’s car walked over and murmured in his Lord’s ear. Then Lady Carr’s phone started ringing.

  Devereau took a step back and watched them. In a few swift seconds, each alpha’s attention had been diverted away from him to something entirely different. The question was what. And how could it help him?

  None of the werewolves bothered with farewells. They departed as smoothly as they had arrived. One by one, they pulled away from the curb.

  Devereau tapped his mouth thoughtfully then strode t
o his car. He didn’t bother locking the front door of his new home. Frankly, there was no point.

  ***

  He followed the trio of cars for a few streets. At first he’d assumed something had occurred at Lisson Grove, where all four clans were based. Rather than turn right to the werewolf stronghold, however, the cars turned left. Interesting.

  Devereau reached for the illegal radio in his glovebox. It had come in handy on more than one occasion in the past, and he didn’t think it would let him down now. He fiddled with it for a moment until the crackles told him he’d tuned in to the right frequency.

  ‘The scene has not been secured. Paramedics are not safe to approach. I repeat, paramedics are not yet safe to approach. Stand by for now.’

  ‘Acknowledged, Dispatch. We’re waiting round the corner for now.’

  There was another crackle and a different voice filled the air. ‘We’re going to need more officers on site. This place is a mess. We believe there are two victims so far, status unknown.’

  ‘Any sign of the werewolf?’

  Devereau hissed through his teeth.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Armed police are on their way. They have authority to take down the wolf.’

  He heard a satisfied grunt. ‘Good. Those damned animals can’t attack people like this and get away with it.’

  Devereau’s hands curled round the steering wheel and his grip tightened. No wonder the alphas had departed in such a hurry. Despite what the general public – and his own community – might think, werewolves rarely attacked humans without provocation. But it sounded like that was exactly what had happened.

  ‘This is Dispatch. Supe Squad have been informed. DS Grace is heading to Goodman’s Alley. ETA twenty-five minutes.’

  Devereau straightened. He knew Goodman’s Alley: it was a tiny street in Whitechapel in the East End of London. He also knew exactly how to get there. While the three black cars in front of him turned right to take the most obvious route, Devereau turned left. His route was faster. Whatever was going on was something to do with werewolves and that meant he was involved, whether anyone else liked it or not.

  Chapter Five

  As he’d expected, the police had blocked off all the roads around Goodman’s Alley. Prepared for such an eventuality, Devereau parked at the small Tesco Metro and continued the rest of the journey on foot. He moved swiftly and purposefully, noting the gathering crowd as people craned their necks to try and get a peek at whatever macabre drama was unfolding beyond the cordon.

  Devereau gazed over the onlookers’ heads and watched the tense-looking police officers outside the shabby terraced house. DS Grace, his expression harried and anxious, had already arrived but there was no sign of the three clan alphas. Satisfied that his knowledge of London hadn’t let him down, Devereau nodded. Then he looked around for a way through.

  Directly behind the house there was a small pub, the sort where old men gathered around a tiny bar to share stories of the good old days. Its front entrance was on the street parallel to Goodman’s Alley, but fire regulations meant that there would be a rear exit which no doubt backed onto the house itself. All he had to do was to get to the pub without being seen and he could nip through and gain access to the crime scene before anyone else.

  The street on which the pub was situated had also been evacuated; clearly the police were taking no risks. There was a policeman at the far end directing people away and Devereau watched him for a moment or two. He might be a uniformed officer rather than a plain-clothes detective but it was obvious he knew what he was doing. From the way his eyes flicked around, never settling on one person for too long, the officer had the age and experience to do his job properly and ensure no member of the public got too close. Getting into the pub unnoticed wouldn’t be easy – but it was far from impossible.

  Stepping back, Devereau’s gaze fell on a group of teenage lads. They were jostling each other and laughing. ‘Drugs,’ one of them said knowledgeably. ‘Betcha.’

  ‘Nah. It’s a bomb. If it was drugs, they’d have raided the place already.’

  ‘We should go round the other side and get a better look.’

  No, don’t do that, Devereau thought as he sidled up to them. ‘Hey,’ he said.

  The nearest lad turned to him, obviously prepared to tell him to get lost. He looked Devereau up and down and thought better of it. ‘What?’ he asked suspiciously.

  ‘I’ll give you fifty quid if you go and tell that copper that you just saw someone running down the street to the left carrying a knife.’

  ‘No chance,’ the lad scoffed.

  His dark-haired friend glanced round with interest. ‘Hundred.’

  Devereau didn’t need to think about it. ‘Done.’ He reached into his pocket and drew out the cash.

  A flicker of indecision crossed the boy’s face as he weighed up whether he could keep the cash without completing the task. Then he looked again at Devereau, glancing at his hard features and visible tattoos, nodded and trotted off.

  Devereau waited just long enough for the copper to turn to the boy and frown, then he slipped past the rest of the boys and darted to the pub’s front door. The landlord hadn’t locked it. He exhaled and went inside.

  Ignoring the half-empty pints of beer and yeasty smell of alcohol, Devereau hopped over the top of the narrow bar and headed for the door marked Staff Only. He emerged into a narrow corridor. A kitchen to one side smelled strongly of grease, and a store room on the other side was stacked high with beer kegs and boxes of crisps. Devereau reached in and grabbed a pack of pork scratchings. He tore it open with his teeth then pressed on, exiting through the fire door into the scrap of garden beyond.

  Popping a few of the scratchings into his mouth, he examined the rear of the house. At first glance it was smart and well maintained but, when he looked more closely, it was clear that the building had problems. It wasn’t quite as bad as his new home, but the drainpipe was rusting and barely attached to the exterior wall. A pigeon seemed to have made a nest on top of one of the chimneys. There was no back door, but an old-fashioned sash window on the second floor had been propped open with a wooden stick.

  Devereau eyed it. Even before he’d turned wolf, he would have managed that climb – there were more than enough footholds in the uneven wall – but he knew that he probably only had minutes before the armed police on the other side of the building made their entrance. He had no desire to get caught in any crossfire. His decision was made, however, when he heard a low, keening moan from inside the house. He was new to this game but it definitely sounded like it came from a werewolf.

  He wasted no more time. Swallowing the last of the piggy snacks, he tossed away the empty bag and vaulted over the rickety fence between the pub’s poor excuse for a garden and the house. He scrabbled up the wall, his fingertips and toes using the uneven surface to gain purchase. Within seconds he was at the open window and shimmying inside.

  The first thing he noticed was the smell of blood that permeated the air. It distracted him from all other considerations, even though the room he found himself in was beautifully decorated in the Scandinavian style that seemed so popular these days. There were numerous objects that he could easily make money on if he chose to nick them, but he wasn’t here for that.

  Devereau knew instinctively that the blood was fresh and had been spilled only recently. It overtook almost completely the lingering scent of floral perfume from whoever lived here. He pushed down his involuntary nausea and, more carefully now, edged towards the door and peered out. The moaning hadn’t ceased – and it sounded like it was coming from only metres away.

  Stepping into the hallway, he glanced up and down. There were three rooms to his left, each one smartly decorated in the same hygge style. Nothing about the house suggested supernatural, so why would a werewolf come here?

  Devereau’s eyes narrowed and his skin itched. It felt as if his own wolf was scratching at him, desperate to be set loose. He squashed it down as
best as he could and turned right. The smell of blood was strongest from that direction – and it was also the source of the moans.

  The floorboards next to the narrow staircase creaked, advertising his presence. He couldn’t worry about that now. Throwing his remaining caution to the wind, he leapt to the last door and threw it open to reveal the horrifying scene beyond.

  Devereau had witnessed a lot of things in his time but he’d never seen anything like this. The whole room was drenched in blood. It was everywhere: coating the floor, sprayed across the walls, splattered on the window and soaked into the clothes of two corpses lying, glassy-eyed, in the corner. Two men, both in their fifties.

  Devereau swallowed and ignored them, focusing instead on the huddled shape by the window. It was a girl, thin boned, shivering and completely naked. Her face was buried in her arms, which were wrapped round her knees. He spotted a strange mark on her shoulder, a birthmark perhaps. It was difficult to be sure because her hair covered most of it.

  Devereau sniffed, searching through the overpowering scent of blood to what lay beneath. The corpses were human but the girl was wolf. It didn’t take a genius to work out what had happened. The question was why.

  No doubt the smart thing to do was to turn and leave as quickly as he’d arrived. The police were preparing to enter and it was highly likely that they’d take no prisoners. Nobody knew Devereau was here; he could walk away and forget he’d ever entered this hell-hole. He hadn’t become The Shepherd by chance; he’d survived on his instincts and grown his crime syndicate by avoiding unnecessary risks. He took a step back. It was definitely time to go.

  And then the girl looked up.

  She was young, far younger than he’d expected. Even with blood streaking her face, it was clear she couldn’t be more than twelve years old, barely older than Alice, in fact.

  He’d been told many times in the recent past that human children were never turned because their hormonal changes during puberty and adolescence made the process too dangerous. It was the reason the clans had refused to turn Alice, despite the very tempting carrot of the use of Regent’s Park at full moon, which he’d dangled in front of them.