“This place can’t be open that late!” she protests.
“Actually I’m doing an evening shift at a restaurant I work at part-time. Luca’s. It’s just down the road from where we live.”
“Oh yeah. I’ve seen it! You’re pretty handy on the job-front, huh? I might have to pick your brains about that at lunch. I’ve been looking but I’ve had no luck.”
“Sure, my knowledge will be all yours!” I ring up her purchases at the cash register and bag them. “Looking forward to Monday.”
We agree where to meet as I see her out of the store. I stand in the doorway to give her a little wave as she walks off. “Stay safe!” I shout instinctively.
She looks at me curiously. I point at my hair. “I meant tonight. We blond girls can’t be too careful with the Wolf-Claw Killer on the rampage.”
She laughs. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”
Chapter 2
DIANA
Later that night, I walk home after finishing my shift at Luca’s restaurant, taking care to stay in well-lit areas and keeping my eyes peeled for any wolfish maniacs.
I walk past India’s house. The house has four floors just like mine. In fact, it is pretty much identical. Pillars flanking the front door, cream painted facade, pretty stone-work masking a rather different story on the inside. I glance up at the windows across the multiple levels, wondering if one belongs to India. She is probably still out celebrating Rachel’s birthday.
I wonder what Rachel is like, and whether she’s a werewolf too. She has to be. Werewolves almost always live in packs as far as I know and this is especially true of female werewolves. The fact that the two of them have moved to London together strikes me as more than a little unusual.
I suppose they will be safer than most. All of the victims of the Wolf-Claw Killer have been human girls.
It irks me that the press have named this murderer Wolf-Claw after the notorious Devil Claw Killer, the serial killer who had murdered my biological mother. It’s like they were trying to create the same sort of panic in the populace. Completely unnecessary given the savage nature of the crimes, and the fact that the last two kills had happened outside of the full moon, making every night a terrifying night.
Theo has given me a shield bracelet and taught me an incantation to activate it. He’s also given me a nasty two inch dart dipped in a super-concentrated wolfsbane potion of his own invention. He’d designed it to be carried on my keyring.
I am holding the dart now, clenched between the knuckles of the index and middle finger of my right hand. Just in case. It feels a bit stupid to be doing so, but he’d made me promise. Fat lot of use it’ll be if the killer decides to spring at me now. I am bone tired. I doubt I have the energy to swing it with anywhere near enough force to pierce a werewolf’s hide right now.
I realize I have come to a standstill outside India’s house. Boy would she think I was creepy if she happened to glance out of her window. Yawning, I trudge onwards.
Thinking of Theo reminds me that the sticky note I left for him about India’s wolfsbane potion may have gone astray. Little Mozz is always touching things she shouldn’t, but even if she hadn’t misplaced it, there’s no guarantee that absent-minded Theo will have actually seen the note.
I dig out my phone from my satchel and give him a ring. It is past midnight, but Theo being a night-owl answers immediately.
“Hi Theo. Did you see the note I left you?”
“The wolfsbane potion? Yes, I’ve already made some up.”
“Thanks Theo, you’re the best. What’s that noise? Is it Mozz? Is she singing? It’s so cute.”
“Yes, very cute,” he says dryly. “Speaking of Mozz, did you see if she got into the store room again today?”
“I didn’t notice it. I thought you had put up a guard spell to keep her out?”
He sighs. “She’s always finding a way to slip past them.”
“Why? Did she get her hands on something she shouldn’t?”
“Oh just a few more things gone astray is all. I was a bit worried about a couple of crystals from the inventory. I’m sure I’ll find them. Were you looking up demonic possessions again?”
“Why?” I ask, suddenly wary.
“You left the book on the counter. Is your friend having any trouble with the amulet I provided?”
I wince when he says ‘friend’. I suspect Theo full well knows the friend I had claimed to be trying to help is none other than myself. I have no friends, unless you count Storm and Remi, who probably think of me just as a colleague. I would have said Deepika and Aisling, fellow waitresses at Luca’s restaurant where I still work the occasional shift, but I never see them outside the restaurant. Theo doesn’t need to know that.
“Er, no, the amulet’s fine, I think.”
“You should ask her to come and see me. If it really is a spiritual possession I am sure I can do something to remove the spirit. Most of the weaker spirits aren’t terribly complicated to remove, and if it’s the pain that she’s worried about—”
“Thanks, Theo, but it’s not the pain. Really. I appreciate your concern though.”
It is best to cut Theo off before he demands outright whether it is me who is having the problem. I’d told the lie before I really knew him, and now that we are friends it has been bothering me immensely. I don’t want to lie to him. If only it had been a simple possession I would have gone to him in a heartbeat. But how can I tell him that I’ve got a murderous little entity inside my head that calls herself Nemesis, who may or may not be the Angel of Death?
A car crash at age fifteen had left me with amnesia and no memory of my life before that. All I know is that since I was fifteen I have had a little voice in my head that had protected me from dangers I’d been too scared to face alone. She’d told me I was the Angel of Death, and I hadn’t known whether to laugh or cry about it. I’d just accepted it as the truth.
It hadn’t been so bad. I was human and ‘Angel of Death’ had just been meaningless words to me. So I had a weird navelstone. So my wounds healed overnight in my sleep. It meant nothing. I’d gotten used to thinking of the little voice as my angry little friend. But that was before she’d taken over my body three weeks ago and attempted to murder someone.
The amulet Theo had given me had had the blessed effect of shutting her up for good. I haven’t heard a peep out of her these past three weeks. It has been such a relief to no longer worry about her taking over my body when I am too tired or emotionally overwrought to stop her.
The only problem is that Theo’s amulet seems to have cut off my psychic powers too. It can’t be a coincidence. It has to be the amulet. And I need those psychic powers back.
“Where are you?” Theo asks suddenly.
“Walking home.”
“And talking on the phone at the same time?” His voice has risen an octave in dismay. “You’d better get off and keep your wits about you.”
Chapter 3
STORM
Special Agent Constantine Storm crouches over the dismembered hand, scrutinizing the cut marks at the severed wrist. He is in a narrow road, little more than an alleyway, off a main commercial street in Shoreditch, a stone’s throw from the city’s banking and financial district. The alleyway stinks of urine from late-night drunkards staggering home after a night out.
It is Sunday evening and this part of the city is like a ghost town on the weekends. Come Monday the main roads will be thriving again. The cleaning crew that had arrived to clean up the streets today before the weekly influx of the working population tomorrow had made the gruesome find.
The hand is small. Storm judges it belonged to a young female going by the smoothness of the skin and the shimmering gold polish on the freshly manicured nails.
Agent Leo Kane, a member of Storm’s team, is standing next to him. “Smells like it was dismembered a couple of days ago,” Leo says.
“The coroner needs to confirm that,” says Detective Inspector Brynden Zael somewhat tetchi
ly.
Ten minutes ago DI Zael of the London Metropolitan Police had been the Senior Investigation Officer in charge of this new case. That had changed the minute Storm arrived at the scene. Zael did not seem to be taking the shift in authority kindly, particularly since Storm is clearly the younger of the two by several years.
DI Zael appears in his early thirties, and whatever vigor got him promoted to his current rank seems to have left him already. His clothes are slightly disheveled as if he hadn’t expected to need to get dressed for work on a Sunday.
Storm is aware that the only reason DI Zael had called in the Agency of Otherkind Investigations was the worry of this possibly being another Wolf-Claw Killer victim. Wolf-Claw is in the Agency’s jurisdiction and the case had been assigned to Storm’s team.
Storm and Leo exchange a glance but neither of them responds to DI Zael’s comment. Leo is Storm’s trusted second-in-command, an experienced agent and a werewolf to boot. If he says the hand smells a couple of days old, Storm believes him.
The cut on the wrist looks too clean, certainly compared to the savagery of the Wolf-Claw Killer’s other attacks. But then again, to strike a blow capable of taking a hand off like that would require a lot of strength. The kind of strength a werewolf has even in human form.
“Werewolf?” Storm asks Leo.
Leo shakes his head. “Cleaning crew’s chemicals have washed any scent markers away.”
DI Zael huffs grumpily. “Where the hell is the rest of her is what I want to know,” he says. “You don’t just walk off leaving your hand behind. We’ve called the nearest hospitals but they haven't had anyone turn up handless. The girl must be dead somewhere.”
“This hand was found two hours ago, shortly after 6:30 pm, is that right?” says Storm.
DI Zael nods.
“And the cleaning vehicle came from a northerly direction down this street?” Storm gestures at the truck which is parked in the middle of the road and facing him.
DI Zael glances at the truck and shrugs his shoulder. “Sure, I guess.”
Storm walks past the truck, thinking out loud. “So the truck came from over there and gathered up the hand in its cleaning brushes somewhere along the way.”
Storm glances behind him. Some distance down the alleyway is the back entrance of a pub called The Half Moon that is popular with city types. “Let’s assume she was at that pub on Friday night, at the end of a working week. She walked in this direction before being attacked.” Storm keeps walking, retracing what may have been the girl’s route. Leo and DI Zael follow him.
At the end of the street Storm reaches the police cordon that is sectioning off the alleyway and crime scene. He glances around. To his left the alley turns off to a private car parking area belonging to a neighboring office building. It is guarded by a closed gate. Storm goes towards it and pushes the gate. It swings open easily.
The ground here is tarmac. Storm crouches to take a closer look. The cleaning crew have not touched this area. Against the black ground Storm sees a large stain that may be blood. Storm glances up at the wall of the office building. He spots a security camera over-looking the parking bay entrance.
“Did you ask for the footage from that camera?” he asks DI Zael.
“Sure, sure, we’ll get it,” says DI Zael.
He calls over one of his officers and dispatches him to the task. Storm tries not to look irritated. If this is the work of the Wolf-Claw Killer then the last thing he needs is DI Zael’s careless attitude getting in his way. But until they’ve established what this is, he is going to have to deal with the man.
“Let’s assume the girl walked from the bar to here,” Storm theorizes. “The assailant arrives either in a vehicle or on foot, forcing her towards the parking bay and blocking her exit. He attacks her. Her hand is dismembered in the attack with enough force to land somewhere in the street. He either pulls her into his vehicle and leaves or…”
Storm pauses as looks around, his mind busily working out which alternative scenarios could have taken place. He looks at Leo who is frowning and turning first this way and then the other. The breeze here is buffeting off the walls, tossing any scents in every direction.
“It’s unlikely he wanted to take her alive,” says Leo.
Storm nods in agreement.
“How’s that?” DI Zael demands.
“He wouldn’t have attacked with such force if he wanted her alive,” says Leo.
Storm walks into the parking bay. It is empty. No cars. Nothing but a bank of large bins at the back.
“The girl runs this way in an effort to escape.” He crouches but he cannot see much of a blood trail on the dark and dirty tarmac. “No. He’s already killed her back there. She bled out. He drags or carries her here, away from the street, to stop her body being discovered too soon.”
Leo is frowning at the bins. DI Zael marches to them and throws them open with gusto and little regard for forensic integrity. “Nothing in here,” he shouts. “They’re empty.”
Storm walks carefully to the bins. He crouches and looks beneath them. The girl is there, her slender body shoved beneath a bin like discarded trash. She is long dead. A small spangly gold handbag is at her side, its contents spilled onto the ground. Storm calls over a forensics tech to take photos before he carefully picks up the girl’s purse. He finds a driving license inside it.
The picture on it is of the same girl. Her smile is wide, her blue eyes twinkling beneath the thick black bangs tumbling over her forehead. She looks sweet, and far too young to be dead.
“She was celebrating her birthday,” Storm says.
“You a psychic or something?” scoffs DI Zael.
“Doesn’t take a psychic,” says Leo impatiently.
“Her twenty-third birthday was on Friday,” says Storm. “And look at her dress.”
It is snug and scarlet, a world away from the prim pearl-buttoned blouse she is wearing in her driving license photo. This dress is not her usual attire. She had dressed to impress. To celebrate her life.
“Rachel Garrett,” Storm murmurs. “Who did this to you, Rachel?”
Chapter 4
DIANA
It is Monday and my lunch date with India is due. I’ve had butterflies in my stomach since I decided what to wear this morning. I can’t tell if it is excitement or nerves, but one thing’s for sure — I seriously need to get more of a life if the mere prospect of a new friend can reduce me to this.
It is 12:44 pm and Theo is not down yet, which is not good because I need to leave soon if I am going to meet India on time.
Theo lives in an apartment above the magic shop and these days he rarely wakes before midday, which is unsurprising given that he’s often up most of the night reading his books or perfecting some new invention or other. Some days he doesn’t even get up until mid-afternoon, which is good for me because I suspect this is the very reason he has given me a job.
Most days I have my lunch here. Most days I would not even think of waking him. Today is not most days.
At 12:45 pm on the dot I send Theo a text message. ‘Theo, I’m leaving in five minutes. Do you want me to shut the store over lunch?’
‘No. I’ll be down soon,’ he replies.
Not trusting him not to fall back asleep, I write back, ‘Okay. I will flip the sign to Closed and lock up until you get here.’
As I grab my satchel, Mozz chooses this moment to appear. She looks like she has awoken from a nap. “Where you going?” she says sleepily.
I scoop her up and cannot resist planting a kiss on her cheek. It makes her giggle.
“I’m going to meet a new friend.”
“New fwend?” She wrinkles her nose.
“Yes. I’ll be back in an hour.”
“Mozzawella can come too?” she enquires.
“No, Mozz baby. You know you can’t come with me.”
“But Mozzawella bored. Mozzawella and Diana play a game now?” She gives me a wide-eyed pleading look. It never fails to
tug at my heart, no matter how often I have told myself she isn’t the toddler she looks like, and has managed to get along perfectly well for many years without me.
“Aww, Mozz baby. I promise we can play a game when I come back. And in the meantime Beastie will keep you company. Okay?”
She nods solemnly, declaring, “Okay,” in her cute little voice and happily going off in search of Beastie.
Twenty minutes later I am waiting outside the café that India and I agreed to meet at. I had arrived on time. She is ten minutes late. I hadn’t even thought to ask her for her phone number, and she doesn’t have mine. It being peak lunch hour in trendy Soho, the café is packed. Through the window, I see a couple vacate a table. I decide to go in and grab it before someone else does. Surely India will think to look for me inside.
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