by T C Shelley
‘OK,’ he said.
‘Baby, listen,’ the mother dog said to her pup. ‘When I give the word, you run!’
‘Yes, Mum,’ Amira replied.
‘No yapping, very quiet.’
Amira’s cage was closest to the shop door. The big man looked out of the window. Sam squatted. As soon as he turned, Sam moved forward.
Shuck. Sam undid the lock on Amira’s cage. Sam looked up to see the man staring out of the window, his eyes glowing yellow. Sam didn’t know if he was seeing right; maybe the fairy dust had befuddled his thoughts too.
Shuck. He undid the mother’s cage, and stepped back towards the gargoyle pack.
From the safer distance, Sam turned his ears to the trio inside, eavesdropping on their conversation. The woman didn’t speak, but waved her hand, and a pounding began in Sam’s ears. The big man was the only one talking, his voice low. A couple came out and sat at the cafe table right next to the door and began talking loudly. Sam missed words from the ones inside, but he still heard snippets: ‘safe house’, ‘promised gold’, ‘doing the dangerous work’ and a word that made Sam shudder: ‘souls’. Sam flinched when he realised the man had taken a step towards the door, opening it so the dazzling fairy smell escaped and burned Sam’s smell and sight, until his thoughts thickened with memories: Maggie cradling him in her arms, Maggie’s singing, soft and gentle.
The cage doors swung open and Amira and her mum padded on to the pavement. Sam bent over, pretending to tie his shoe, and pointed at the door. The dogs turned as the big man stepped out and stared at the free dogs.
‘Hey!’ the big man yelled.
The woman slid out of the shop too. It seemed leisurely, but she was a moment behind the man. A lock of red hair escaped her hood. She picked up the hair between pale, lazy fingers and nursed it back under her cape.
Her movements were graceful and languid, like a banshee’s.
It was from this figure the overpowering stink of fairy dust came. Sam sneezed – the stuff always irritated his nose – and the figure turned, just slightly, as if it recognised the sound. Sam leaned closer to see her, to hear her.
‘Maggie?’ Sam whispered.
Hearing him, the big man turned his head from the dogs and frowned at Sam.
The hooded woman studied Sam too. A vagrant gust of wind gathered her bright red hair as she pushed back her cowl, and Sam could see fine features and the sparkle of bright green eyes. Her face was masked by glistening fairy dust hanging in the air. She pointed directly at Sam and her hands glowed.
The dogs barked and raced by Sam out of the square.
The big man went to chase the dogs, but the woman stopped him with her hand on his shoulder and stared at Sam, until both of them seemed to see nothing but the boy, and they stalked towards him. The big man knocked against the table of the cafe customers. ‘What are you …’ one asked. The red-haired woman turned to look at them, the dust around her face falling like tears. The tea-drinking woman looked at her, and gave a dust-befuddled smile.
‘Come here, boy.’ The big man threw dust at Sam. Sam sneezed again.
‘Run, Sam,’ Bladder screamed at the same time Wheedle yelled, ‘Maggie!’
The pair looked straight at Wheedle and the gargoyle took a step backwards.
Sam remembered his legs and hustled down the lane, passing the three gargoyles.
Sam took his first corner. As he turned the man called to him, ‘Come back, boy!’
‘Run,’ Bladder said. ‘We’re right behind you.’
A crowd made noise up ahead, and Sam and the pack dived to their left, trying to avoid being seen by people.
As they veered, Sam looked over his shoulder to see the big man following along. Maggie was not with him.
Construction signs appeared ahead. Danger, Way Closed. The whole footpath had been dug open, leaving a nice hole in front of them.
Spigot shrilled.
‘I don’t want to go down either, Spigs,’ Wheedle said.
‘She’s in there, waiting,’ Bladder said. ‘It’s a trap. Stop.’
Sam felt sick. Part of him wanted to talk to Maggie, but the gargoyles were terrified. They all did as Bladder said, and stopped.
The big man followed a few paces behind, but the gargoyles swung around and formed a stone barrier across the small lane separating him from Sam. The great brute looked at the line of gargoyles, pushed off the ground to start an impressive leap over Sam’s stone guard. Bladder popped up and gave him a rock-solid punch to the upper leg, and the man fell with a hard yelp to the paving.
‘What the … ?’ the big man roared and tried to push himself up, but Wheedle cracked him on the head with a solid wing. The man dropped again, his skull smacking on the footpath with such force it made them all wince. If he’d had a gargoyle’s head, it would have broken off.
‘Get up on the roof,’ Wheedle said to Sam, ‘before he wakes up.’
Sam ran for the wall and climbed. He pulled himself up the side of the building.
On the roof, they all took one last look at the big man lying below, then backed away from the edge. A minute later they heard him sit up and go screaming back the way he’d come, still yelling, ‘Boy! Boy!’
Sam heard happy barks coming from far away. At least Amira and her mum were safe.
Wheedle puffed. ‘Are we sure it’s Maggie?’
‘Who else smells like that?’ Bladder answered.
‘Let’s have a look around,’ Wheedle said. ‘See where she is. She must know you’re about somewhere.’
Bladder pulled Sam into his stony paws. ‘Nobody’s searching for her. We get Sam on the next bus home to where Big Bird’s paint job can protect him.’
CHAPTER 8
Sam stayed home all Sunday, and found himself nervous on the walk to school Monday morning, but when he came in sight of Daniel’s protective sigils high up on the school building, he relaxed. He waited at the gate for his new friends, especially wanting to see Amira to check she and her mum were OK.
He saw Wilfred wandering down the path, and waved at him. Wilfred waved back and ran at Sam.
‘Hey, Sam.’ Wilfred grinned and grinned. ‘So happy to see you.’
‘Me too. If you were in your Kintamani form, I’d pat your head.’
‘You saying it makes me feel good.’
‘Where are the others?’
‘Aren’t they here yet? I’m normally the last one.’
‘Did you see them yesterday?’ Sam asked.
‘I saw Hazel yesterday afternoon, and we left a message for Amira. She didn’t call back, but this is her weekend to go to her dad’s.’
Sam told him about Saturday.
‘A big man in a heavy coat caught Amira and her mum in cages? Then he chased you?’
‘Yes.’
Wilfred’s face paled more than usual. He pulled out his mobile phone and stabbed a few buttons. It rang and rang and rang until Amira’s voice reported she couldn’t take a message, so leave a phone number. Wilfred hung up. He stabbed a few more keys. That number rang too long as well. ‘Hazel’s not answering either.’
Without explaining, Wilfred ran out the school gates. Sam took off after the shifter boy and ran next to him.
Wilfred gave him a strained smile. ‘You helped Amira escape, so she should be at school. I haven’t heard from either of them at all. I got to get home to tell my dad. Hazel’s place is on the way home.’
‘Tell your dad?’
‘He’s a policeman. Not the human kind – he’s with the Shifter Authorities,’ Wilfred panted as he ran.
Sam trotted with Wilfred as he headed home. He knew he wasn’t supposed to leave school, and Nick would make all sorts of horrified noises if he found out, so Sam hoped to get back before breaktime. Although a missing Amira and Hazel did seem more important. Sam had been sure Amira would come to school and now Hazel hadn’t appeared either.
‘Sixteen people in Ireland.’ Wilfred’s voice was breathy. ‘Two whole families in Dublin
. Twenty people in Scotland. Thirty-seven in Wales. Most Welsh shifters are corgis. There’s a lot of corgis up there. Were. Were a lot of corgis.’ He looked at Sam as if this was supposed to make sense. ‘Whole families have gone missing.’
Sam remembered the newspaper clipping Bladder had given him at the courthouse had said something about missing families. ‘In Ireland, Scotland and Wales? Were they all shifters?’
‘Yep, I overheard my dad telling Mum. He had to go to Anglesey because some of the authorities went missing too.’ He looked at Sam. ‘The authorities!’ The creases around Wilfred’s mouth deepened. ‘Dad told her they’d tracked most of the shifters down; they’d been sold as pets and didn’t seem themselves any more, weren’t able to shift, or didn’t want to. No one knows what’s wrong with them. Dad said when they talked they didn’t make sense.’
‘He told you all this?’
‘No, but if I shift into a pup at bedtime I can hear everything downstairs. Dogs have way better ears than humans. Not as good as yours though.’ Wilfred stopped, bending over to catch his breath. ‘When he came back from Anglesey, he was pale and didn’t talk much to me.’
Sam felt sick to his stomach. ‘Are there a lot of shifters around here?’
Wilfred, still huffing, shook his head.
‘Don’t talk any more, let’s get to Hazel’s house,’ Sam said.
The boys raced along the footpath.
Sam had no idea where they had run to, but Wilfred halted sharply and Sam studied the house they’d stopped near. Its door stood wide open. Wilfred yelped and dashed up the steps. Sam noticed him struggling with his trousers, as if his legs were too short. He was shrinking right in front of Sam. His shirt hung off him and the glossy black hair on his head stuck up in two points.
The shifter staggered across the threshold. Sam chased him inside and found himself in a house like his own. It smelt of cooking and laundry powder and shampoo. All the odd scents that filled a home. It also smelt distinctly doggy.
Wilfred shrank smaller and smaller, still wrapped in his clothes, until all Sam could see was the head of the black and fluffy dog struggling to get out of his school uniform. Wilfred yelped. ‘I’ve shifted. I’ve shifted.’ He put out a paw and stared at it. ‘Sam, why can’t I shift back?’ he yapped, struggling inside the shirt.
Sam smelt the overwhelming odour of stale fairy dust and reached down to undo Wilfred’s buttons.
As soon as he was free, Wilfred dashed up the stairs, his yap high and shaky. ‘Hazel, Mr Kokoni, Dr Kokoni!’
No one answered.
‘If we find Dr Kokoni, she might be able to tell me why I can’t change,’ the pup called from the top floor. ‘She specialises in shifter medicine.’
‘It’s not medicine you need, Wilfred. It’s fresh air. This place is filled with fairy dust. It’s the dust that stopped Amira and her mum changing back on Saturday.’
Wilfred sprinted down the stairs and followed Sam to the kitchen door. Sam put his hand out, wanting to ward off what they might see in the next room. The pungent scent of dust was coming from there.
Wilfred laughed as if Sam had told him a fabulous joke.
‘It’s magic,’ Sam said. ‘Don’t breathe too deeply.’
‘What? No, it’s …’
Sam clamped a hand over Wilfred’s muzzle and opened the door. Even without a good nose, he’d have known that something was wrong.
Chairs at the dining table had been overturned, a pot on the stove had fallen to the tiles, spilling red sauce across the floor. It looked like blood against the blue-and-white pattern.
Wilfred, who had obediently held his breath, opened his mouth and gasped. Then he giggled. He couldn’t help it, he wagged his tail and sniffed more of the stale fairy dust. The pup was giggly and excited. He rolled on the floor and when Sam reached for him, he darted to one side, wagging his tail.
‘Throw me a ball, Sam. Throw me a ball.’
‘We’re here to find Hazel …’ Sam started, but the puppy’s bottom wriggled so wildly. ‘Outside,’ Sam said.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Wilfred hustled.
At the threshold of the back door, Sam smelt the source of the dust. It was strong and pungent, and that was with the door wide open and the wind clearing as much as it could.
As soon as Sam had him away from the kitchen, in the middle of the back lawn in the sweet, fresh, magic-free air, Wilfred sat fluffy-bottomed on the grass and howled.
A cat in a tree a few gardens over swore loudly.
‘What was all that? What was I doing?’ Wilfred asked.
‘Fairy dust,’ Sam said. ‘You just needed to be outside.’
‘Fairy dust? Did you say that before?’
‘It’s magic. It’ll muddy your thinking. It’s what made you giggle. It’s stale though, from last night.’
‘Wow, if that’s stale, what can the fresh stuff do?’
‘An awful lot of damage,’ Sam replied.
‘It made me feel good, like I just wanted to float away.’
‘You wait here, I need to look at the kitchen again. You shouldn’t go in there though. It affects you more than it affects me.’
‘Lift me to the window,’ Wilfred said. ‘I can help. I’m good at understanding what I see.’
Sam picked up the pup. It was an odd feeling, holding your new and (Sam had to admit) adorable friend in your arms. Wilfred licked his face.
Wilfred leaned his forepaws on the ledge and they both looked through the window.
Sam studied the scene. Two toppled chairs and a pot of spilt sauce. ‘The Kokonis were frightened at some point, weren’t they? The chairs – I guess if someone jumped up they would have knocked over the chairs, right? And they would have jumped up if they were startled.’
‘You might drop a pot of sauce if you were surprised too,’ Wilfred agreed. ‘That doesn’t make sense because they must have let them in.’
Sam studied the houses on either side and the height of the fences. ‘I don’t think they did. The smell of fairy dust is strongest at the back door. I think someone showed up there.’
‘That would alarm anyone, and whoever it was threw dust into the room. They wouldn’t have time to respond. It’s … it’s …’
‘Bewitching,’ Sam suggested.
‘Yeah, even now I feel a bit happy. Excited. I know I shouldn’t. This is awful. It makes you feel good and you don’t think much about anything.’ Wilfred’s ears pricked. ‘It didn’t affect you the same?’
‘No, maybe because I’m part fairy.’
Wilfred sniffed at Sam’s shoulder. ‘Oh, yeah. It’s stronger on you right now.’
‘Maggie’s been here. That’s what that smell means. She’s … taken them, using magic. They would have just followed her wherever she wanted them to go.’
The dog tilted his head and lifted his ears. ‘Who’s Maggie?’
Sam told about his first meeting with Maggie, who’d attempted to use fairy dust to lure Nick away, which would have worked if Sam hadn’t been there. He described her tiny tin of dust, and the hooded figure in The Lanes when he’d seen Amira in dog form.
‘You’ve mentioned the ogres before, but never Maggie,’ Wilfred said.
Sam pressed his lips together. He didn’t know what to say about Maggie. He had no idea how he felt about her. He shook his head.
‘That’s OK. Is she behind all the kidnappings, do you think?’
Sam had a tumbling feeling. Is she? What does she want with shifters? And the worst thought of all. ‘Is she taking them to get at me?’
‘Sam, no. These disappearances are all over the place, and they’ve been going on for months.’
‘How many months?’
‘At least two, maybe three.’ Wilfred licked Sam’s face again. ‘It’s not you.’
Sam didn’t say anything, but he’d brought Beatrice back three months earlier, not long after Thunderguts had been destroyed. Three months meant it was exactly the right time.
Wilfred howled. The c
at in the tree a couple of back gardens over directed another swear word at Wilfred. ‘I need to get out of here and tell Dad,’ the pup said.
Sam carried Wilfred through the kitchen. Sam clamped the doggy mouth shut and didn’t let go until he’d closed the kitchen door on the other side. Even then the pong of dust hung in the air and Wilfred’s tail wagged of its own accord. Sam grabbed Wilfred’s clothes, bustled the dog into the living room and opened the window to let air into the room. The smell of dust was weak in there, but it still needed airing. Sam waited in the hall, listening as Wilfred’s series of yaps changed to mmphs and akks. Wilfred appeared, his hair falling smoothly and darkly around his ears.
‘Well, come on, let’s get to my house,’ he said jauntily.
Sam was not looking forward to how bad Wilfred would feel about the situation when the dust totally left his system. Wilfred picked up his shoes and sat on the doorstep to put them on. Sam pulled the front door closed and sat down next to his friend.
A woman with an old-looking Labrador crossed from the other side of the street and held up a hand to wave at them. Wilfred waved back.
‘Is she … ?’ Sam looked at the Labrador.
‘Just a normal dog,’ Wilfred replied. ‘So don’t mention the shifter thing. Remember Hoy Poy.’
The Labrador barked. She sounded old and cantankerous. ‘Wilfred, get away from that … boy.’ She growled at Sam. ‘And you get away from Wilfred. We don’t want your type around here. This is a respectable neighbourhood.’
‘Dora, Dora, calm down,’ the woman said, rubbing a hanky under her nose. Her voice sounded throaty and sore. ‘I’m so sorry, Wilfred, she’s not normally like this.’
‘Hi, Mrs Kelly,’ Wilfred said, then bent down as if to pet the dog. ‘Hey, Dora, he’s OK. Sniff deeper.’
‘Master Wilfred, he’s not human,’ Dora replied.
‘Sniff deeper,’ Wilfred repeated.
The dog stopped barking at Sam and sat down, her nose in the open air. ‘Oh, I see what you mean. The wrong thing hits you first, but there’s a lot of lovely things too.’
‘I don’t know how you do that,’ the woman said to Wilfred. ‘You and Hazel both have an uncanny ability to understand what’s bothering Dora, and she seems to understand you too. Thank you for walking her yesterday afternoon. She does love it when Hazel and her friends take her out.’
