‘I visited your parents earlier this evening,’ said Leanna. ‘I took them a food basket, just like you did. They were very grateful. They welcomed me into their home. But they didn’t get to eat any of the food I took them. I ate them instead.’
‘No!’ he shouted. ‘You’re lying.’ But a cold dread had seized his heart.
‘I thought you might say that,’ said Leanna. ‘So I brought you some proof.’ She slid a hand inside her jacket and drew out a photograph. ‘Recognize this?’
The photo brought back instant and vivid memories. It had been taken at his first day at the Catholic Boys School on Mayfield Avenue. An impossibly young version of himself stood awkwardly outside the gate to the school, dressed in his brand new uniform, his shoes polished to a bright shine, the sleeves of his blazer too long. ‘You’ll grow into it soon enough,’ his mother had promised him. He choked back the tears as he remembered.
‘This photograph took pride of place on the mantelpiece in their front room,’ said Leanna. ‘It seems they still loved you, even after everything you’d done.’
‘No,’ said James, but what was he denying? She spoke the truth. His parents were dead. Everyone he held most dear was dead. His mother and father; Samuel too. Every hope, every desire, every dream was dashed. Nothing remained in this world for him now.
Leanna licked her lips greedily. ‘You defied me once,’ she accused. ‘But you will never defy me again.’
‘No,’ he said, willing for it to end quickly. He bowed his head before her. ‘Take me, then.’
‘What?’ Her voice cut the air like a knife.
‘You can have me,’ he told her. ‘Take your vengeance. Kill me now.’ He stepped toward her, head dipped, arms clasped behind his back.
She backed away from him. ‘No,’ she cried, ‘Not like this!’
James looked up. ‘How then?’
‘Run!’ Her anger blossomed into red hot fire. ‘Fight!’
He shook his head sadly. ‘No,’ he said. What was the point? He had no fight left in him. ‘Do it quickly.’
Already the pale form of the moon was peeping through the clouds above. He felt the moonlight brush his skin. The hairs on his neck began to tingle.
He would change in seconds. And then what? He didn’t want to find out. ‘Do it!’ he commanded.
But Leanna held back. She would not touch him. She bared her teeth in frustration and rage.
‘Do it now!’ he insisted, but she stood her ground.
The change began, slowly at first. His fingertips throbbed, his clothing tightened, his breaths came faster. There was nothing he could do to stop it. Fire flowed from his heart as the wolf blood quickened in his veins.
Leanna was changing too. The pale skin of her face rippled as fine golden hairs pushed through, concealing her disfigurement. The nails of her thin fingers began to twist, turning longer, sharper, iron-hard. Her mouth contorted into a sickening grin as sharp canine teeth emerged, glinting white as the snowy ground around her. She let out a triumphant howl as the change flooded through her.
The change was reviving James, restoring vigour, just as Samuel had once given him the gift of a new life through love. The transformation accelerated as skin and bone reshaped themselves under the pull of the wolf moon. Muscles thickened as his limbs grew strong, and he dropped to all fours. Energy coursed through him again. And hunger too, more hunger than he could have imagined. He growled at Leanna and raked the ground with long claws.
Already Leanna was in full wolf form. She opened her snout in triumph, exposing long teeth like icicles, snorting white breath toward him. ‘Yes,’ she hissed with satisfaction. ‘Like this. Wolf to wolf.’ She padded slowly up the path.
Voices came from within the house behind him. A man’s voice: Ben’s. Then Melanie’s. The front door of the house began to open.
Leanna laughed cruelly. ‘You can be my main course, James. Your parents were my hors d'oeuvres, and your friends will be my dessert.’
‘No,’ cried James. He roared at her with anger. ‘I won’t let you.’
She paced toward him, eyes shining yellow, mouth a cage of white teeth. ‘You have no power over me,’ she snarled. She scratched at the ground in anger, getting ready to pounce. ‘I am your queen now,’ she said. ‘Queen of all werewolves. And you shall do as I command.’
James stood his ground between her and the others. He would never let her pass. ‘You are no queen,’ he told her. ‘Look around you. Everything you touch you destroy. You are queen of nothing.’
He threw back his head and howled.
Chapter Eighty-Four
King’s College Hospital, Lambeth, South London, wolf moon
Chanita woke with a start. She grabbed rest whenever she could these days, slipping into oblivion in minutes, the warm relief of sleep taking her into its welcoming arms like a lover snatching a quick kiss. She never knew how long she might sleep, or how long it would be before she could rest again.
The sound that had shattered the silence of the night was loud enough to wake the dead. A fire alarm, ringing frantically. She had heard another sound too. An explosion. More than one. The hospital must be under attack.
She sat bolt upright and leapt from her makeshift bed in a single movement.
A fire here, in the hospital?
They had to evacuate immediately, or it would be a catastrophe. She thought of all the patients sealed into quarantine. How could they get everyone out safely?
But if someone was attacking the hospital, was it even safe to leave? And what about the quarantine? The risk that all the patients might escape was unthinkable.
But there was no time to think. Events were unfolding too quickly. She dashed onto the ward and saw chaos. Patients were up and about, rushing to and fro, and the doctors and nurses seemed unable to control them. The two soldiers on guard in the ward shouted for order, but no one took any notice. They raised their rifles, but stopped short of firing. There was too much movement, and the patients seemed scared, not violent.
‘Everyone stay calm and return to your beds!’ she shouted, but the noise was too loud and no one seemed in a mood to listen. Instead she turned to the soldiers. ‘Help me unlock the doors. We have to get everyone out of here,’ she told them.
The two soldiers regarded her uncertainly. ‘We have orders to keep them here unless authorized.’
‘Move!’ she screeched at them. ‘I’m authorizing you! We’ll burn to a crisp if we stay in here!’
That got them moving. One of them brought out a bunch of keys and went to the main exit door to open it.
‘What are you planning to do?’ asked the other soldier. ‘We were told to keep the patients quarantined even in the event of a fire. Our instructions are to wait for help to arrive.’
‘You heard the explosions,’ Chanita told him. ‘This is no ordinary fire. The hospital is under attack.’
‘Okay,’ agreed the man. ‘Come on, we’ll escort the prisoners down to the main entrance hall and wait for further instructions.’
Chapter Eighty-Five
Brixton Village, South London, wolf moon
Ben left Mr Stewart lying on the cellar floor and closed the door tightly shut, slamming the bolt home and locking the padlock. He slipped the key into his pocket. ‘He won’t be going anywhere in a hurry,’ he said. He still had no idea how Melanie had found out that he’d been taken prisoner, but there would be time to ask questions later. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Someone might come back at any time. We have to get out of here.’
She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a kiss on the mouth. ‘I’m just so relieved that they didn’t hurt you,’ she said.
‘I’m okay apart from a few bruises,’ he said. ‘But I might not be if we don’t make a run for it.’
Richard Hallibury led the way back up the stairs, holding the steel rod in front of him. His wife, Jane, went next, then Melanie. Ben checked the locked door once more, then followed, clutching the hunting knife that Melanie had taken from Mr Stewart.<
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He reached the top of the staircase when he heard the sound of a wolf howling outside.
Richard stopped abruptly in the hallway.
The sound was unmistakable. A wolf, right outside the front door of the house. It continued to rise and fall for several seconds before dying away.
‘Let’s go out the back way,’ said Ben. ‘We can’t go out into the street with a werewolf on the loose.’
He started to back away, but Melanie grabbed his arm. ‘Stop. It’s just James. I left him out there. He must have changed in the moonlight.’
‘Your friend is a werewolf?’ said Ben. When he’d first heard that James was the Beaumont’s son, he’d guessed as much, but still, he’d been reluctant to accept it. Now hearing it from Melanie’s own lips brought the truth crashing home. James Beaumont was the boy that the police had suspected of killing that Catholic priest in his confessional. ‘Will he attack us if we go out?’ Every werewolf that had been captured on video had killed or attacked someone.
‘James would never hurt me,’ said Melanie fiercely. ‘He saved my life.’
But Richard Hallibury seemed sceptical. ‘We’re not going out there with a werewolf, whoever he happens to be.’
‘Let me go first,’ said Melanie. ‘I’ll talk to him. Then you’ll see.’ She opened the front door and looked outside. She was greeted by the howling of a second wolf.
Chapter Eighty-Six
High Street, Brixton Hill, South London, wolf moon
The thin man aimed the handgun at Liz’s chest. She sat immobile on the hard pavement, the blood pounding noisily in her temples. He stood too close to her to miss. If she tried to move she was dead. And Zoran still held his gun to Kevin’s head. She could do nothing. Dean crouched next to her, breathing hard, looking for a way out, a straw to grasp. But they were both out of options.
‘Kill her,’ ordered Zoran. ‘Kill them both.’
Was this the end? After all she had been through, was she now to be gunned down cold-bloodedly in the street just minutes from her own home by armed robbers? She’d known the risks when she’d signed up to become a police officer. She’d seen fellow officers shot, stabbed, and even bitten to death. Her colleague Dave Morgan had been killed by the Beast of Clapham Common only a month previously. It looked like she’d be joining him. She wasn’t sure if she believed in God or in an afterlife, but she was about to find out.
The thin man’s finger closed around the trigger.
Above her the sky was lightening as the moon pushed through the wispy remnants of the snow clouds. She’d done her best to stay indoors tonight, refusing to risk exposure to the moonlight. But fate had brought her here anyway, only to bring her life to a brutal and untimely end. A few more seconds and she’d be lying dead in the road outside the butcher’s shop.
‘No!’ A figure darted out from behind the delivery van. A small, skinny waif, his brown hair like a thatched roof, dashing out of the shadows. Mihai.
No. He couldn’t be here. She had left him safe at home with Samantha. She had forbidden him to come. She opened her mouth to shout, but it was already too late. The boy leapt at the thin man, jumping onto his back, grabbing at his arms and pulling with all his strength. ‘No shoot Liz!’ he screamed.
The gun went off. The noise from the gun and the pain from the bullet struck her at the same time. Mihai’s frantic efforts had shifted the man’s aim. Not enough to miss completely, but to hit her arm, not her chest. Blood from the wound splashed her face, turning her vision red, as her ears rang with the noise of the shot and the sound of her own scream. She clutched at her arm to stem the flow of blood, but the crimson liquid coursed freely between her fingers. At point blank range the bullet had gone clean through and she was bleeding out. She fell to the ground as the pain swallowed her up.
The thin man spun like a windmill as Mihai clung to his neck, arms flailing wildly. ‘No shoot!’ he shouted again. ‘No kill!’
Another shot went off, this one high as Mihai struggled with his opponent.
Her father used the moment to make his move. He struck out at Zoran, ducking down and barrelling forward into his broad chest, using the wooden crate he held as a battering ram. Zoran fired at him, but the shot went wide. Zoran staggered back as Kevin powered forward.
Dean seized the moment too, kicking out at the big man who stood over him. The man’s legs buckled under him and he went down hard. Dean threw himself onto him and grappled his opponent, rolling over in the street. The gun skittered out of the man’s hand, but he fought back with powerful blows to Dean’s face and chest.
It was all Liz could do to stop herself slipping into unconsciousness. The pain from the bullet wound was overpowering. She gripped her left arm with her right hand, trying to staunch the bleeding, but her sleeve was quickly turning red. If the bullet had severed an artery she would probably bleed to death before medical help arrived. Her breaths were shallow and quick, more like gasps, and she could feel the pressure of panic bubbling up in her chest like a thick liquid. Her head felt cold as ice, then hot as fire. She rolled over and vomited.
Mihai still clung to the thin man, his hands over the man’s eyes. The man swung wildly trying to throw him off, but the boy clung on, his dark eyes burning with fury. The man raised his gun and fired off another shot, seeming not to care where it went.
Zoran had fallen to the ground as Kevin’s crate crashed open, but he rolled quickly and was back to his feet in seconds. He aimed his gun at Kevin. Kevin grabbed it as it went off, shooting high. The two men struggled to wrest control of the weapon. Zoran kicked out viciously. Kevin twisted and stamped his foot against his opponent’s knee. They tumbled to the ground in a knot of limbs and grunts. The tussle for the handgun went on.
The silver moon looked down on Liz with kindness. She felt its rays like feathers caressing her face. She had tried to avoid it, done her best to free herself from its relentless pull, but fate, destiny, or just cruel chance had aligned with the moon against her. She gave herself up to it.
The soft moonlight soothed away her pain, bringing clarity to her thoughts. It raised the hairs on the back of her neck and sent smooth ripples of calmness to block the panic that had threatened to take her. She lay still and let it do its work.
Dean and his opponent were trading blows. Grunts and slaps rang out in the night as they rolled and fought, like dancers moving to some grim rhythm.
A fire surged through Liz’s wounded arm, from her shoulder to the tips of her fingers. Her flesh was remaking itself from within. She cried out in a mixture of pain and ecstasy as the wound closed and knitted together as if it had never been. The bleeding stopped. Still the moon smiled down, sending its strange power, making her its creature.
Mihai cried out as the man finally threw him off. The boy crashed to the ground and lay on his back, winded. The man stood over him, aiming his gun. ‘Stop!’ he called out. ‘Stop fighting or the boy dies!’
As soon as Kevin heard, he gave himself up to Zoran immediately. ‘Please, don’t harm the boy,’ he begged. He kneeled on the ground and raised his hands, allowing Zoran to take control of the gun.
Dean also rolled away from his opponent. The thin man kept his gun pointing at Mihai.
‘Don’t you dare,’ said Kevin. ‘If you harm one hair on his head, I’ll kill you with my bare hands.’
Zoran stood over Kevin and dusted himself down. The gun was in his hand again. He turned it toward Kevin. When he spoke, his voice cut like a razor. ‘No one tells me what to do.’
The healing fire in Liz’s arm receded. The damage was undone, the flow of blood quenched, the flesh made whole again. She flexed the arm and all pain was gone. New strength came to her, rising like a flood, filling her with power. Time was slowing, just as it had under the last full moon. Her mind grew sharp, her senses clear. The moonlight bathed her, changing her still. Her fingers ached as her nails twisted outward, hardening into blades. They hungered for flesh. They whispered to her, begging for violence.
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Zoran placed his boot against Kevin’s neck and pushed him roughly to the ground. ‘Enough,’ he said. ‘This ends now.’ His finger caressed the trigger of the gun.
Liz rose to her knees, and then her feet, almost weightless. Her limbs pulsed with pure energy. Her long fingernails were like claws, thirsting for blood. Her teeth ached for the taste of flesh.
‘Kill the boy,’ ordered Zoran. ‘Kill him now.’
The thin man’s face remained expressionless. His finger pulled the trigger.
A sound fell from Liz’s lips unbidden. She felt faces turning toward her. Eyes widened slowly in surprise. The sound that came from her mouth was a roar.
She had already crossed the distance to Mihai. She didn’t know how. The bullet made a grey blur through the air. She snatched at it with her fingers, and dashed the shot from its path. It dropped to the ground like a tamed beast.
The thin man stood still as a statue, his arm outstretched.
She spun in the air, striking him with her foot. He opened his mouth to cry out, but no sound came. His eyes rolled slowly toward her. She spun again and opened his throat with hands like blades, drawing thin red trails across the whiteness of his neck. The man looked surprised. She spun a third time as he began to fall sideways, and landed lightly as his body hit the ground. Droplets of blood beaded his neck like a grisly necklace.
Still the moonlight powered her on. Her lungs drew air and she felt a new release of energy flooding her body, threatening to break her if she refused to let it flow.
Blood, whispered her fingers. Flesh, begged her teeth.
The thin man lay still now and Mihai was safe. She turned to face the others.
Zoran’s face had blanched white. The gun trembled in his fingers like a petal in the wind. She flew at him, another roar issuing from her throat, and grabbed at his arm. She spun once again, ripping the arm from its socket, twisting it loose so that his weapon fell harmlessly. The sound of his scream fuelled her hunger for more violence. On she sped to the third man.
Lycanthropic (Book 2): Wolf Moon (The Rise of the Werewolves) Page 32