by T C Shelley
Sam frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, the queen, she’s all business, isn’t she? She’ll come and help when we start a new area. We need a few insiders to get the programme up and running, but even fixers and knockers don’t want to deal with anything they don’t understand. The average human really doesn’t want to know about supernatural things and all that. She sets that up. Finds the right locals, befuddles them with dust so much they forget their names, then I have my go-to people.’
‘Don’t you do that yourself? I saw you dust Mrs Petersen.’
‘Her Majesty showed me how to get someone to do what I want on the spot, maybe to see what I want to see, but only she can do the long-term charms. We need each other to go the long game. She’s enchanted the pet shop man. He’s one of my drivers, and he’s great for selling the animals on afterwards. Nothing suspicious about a pet shop man selling dogs. He likes them too, so they’ll end up in nice homes. I’m not as awful as you think.’
‘You kidnap innocent people for money?’
Woermann tilted his shaggy head and stared at Sam with his golden eyes. ‘Money’s just part of it. I used to be a private investigator, you know. I liked the hunt. I liked finding out about people. All their nasty business. Then one day, it all changed. I had a client who was a bit suspicious of his business partner. Where he was going to? What he was spending his money on? It turned out to be beyond what I expected, and I saw him … Well, suffice to say, he attacked me. Wasn’t human when he did, and I thought that was the end of my life, but it turned out it was the beginning. I changed. For the better. My hunting instincts are stronger. My sense of smell, my eyesight.’ Woermann flexed his hands on the steering wheel. ‘My strength. But I need a challenge, something other than chasing up people who haven’t paid bills. She must have known. She found me wandering around miserable near Norfolk.’
‘Maggie?’
‘She calls herself something different every time. Mabh, Mab. Maggie? Yeah, I think so.’
Woermann turned down a small side street.
‘She found me up north, working a boring contract for a small secretarial company. Dropped it like a hot cake. It was sending me nuts working those jobs. I could have ripped someone’s throat out.’
Sam inhaled.
Woermann smirked. ‘Oh, yeah, quite literally. I needed something to distract me. And this is perfect. You must have supernatural skills to hunt shifters, really sniff them out. Even she can’t do that, which is why I’m precious to her.’ The big man looked over at Sam. ‘Shifters mix so well with humans, it’s hard to tell them apart, and hard to find them. It took me a month to get all the ones outside Glasgow. They were my first catch. You got no idea how the hunt gets my blood racing.’
They hurried towards a grizzled green country. The cold air leached the colour from the fields, and bushes died in the cold winds. Trees clung to their few leaves, half naked and vulnerable, beaten and sad. Sam wondered where the sunshine had gone.
‘Are we going straight to her?’ he asked.
‘No, you’ve got two or three days to settle in.’ Woermann turned to Sam and grinned, showing pointy yellow teeth. ‘I’ve got a lovely room set up for you. All the trimmings. You’re special. Got you a PS4, games, your own TV. And a mini fridge. You’re a little prince, she says, and I’ve got to treat you like one. And as they say, the customer is always right.’
Sam exhaled. He had a bit of time before Maggie showed up. Then he thought about it. ‘Why isn’t she coming straight away? What’s she doing?’
‘Busy lady. Not my job to ask. Although she did say something about Italy. Maybe we’re going there next. You too. We may all get a nice holiday to the Continent. Hunt for a few shifters. Wouldn’t you like that? I can’t do anything until after the next moon, though.’
‘Why not?’
Woermann rolled his eyes.
‘Oh, yeah,’ Sam said.
Sam thought about it. Two days minimum. Forty-eight hours to help the puppies then get home. He looked out of the window and saw no sign of Daniel. He was on his own.
They turned from the solid asphalt two-way road into a single lane, lined with hedges cramming against both sides of the car.
Then Woermann rolled his Mercedes into a gravelly driveway between two bitter brown fields. More evergreen hedges separated an area further in, shielding a building from the road, although Sam doubted many people would even bother looking in. The gate, which Woermann beeped open with a remote, looked like every other gate they’d passed.
It was an expensive area.
They drove through a break in the hedge towards a three-storey mansion. Its wide Victorian front might have been beautiful on another day. It had soft golden-coloured bricking with large windows gaping down at him. Naked vines climbed the walls, although the odd dead rose poked out here or there. They looked uncared for. On a day when storm hung in the air and the sea wind cut like claws, the large windows peered at Sam in misery as if the house too had had its dreams stolen. It was a beautiful mansion haunted by Woermann.
Woermann beamed as Sam studied the building. ‘Gorgeous, isn’t it? Come on, son. Let me show you your room. You’re gonna love it.’
Sam stared at the grey sky, calling silently for Daniel to appear. Any angel would’ve done.
From the door, Woermann looked back at Sam. ‘What are you doing? Come on.’
Sam saw a blur of white in the sky, but it was just a small, rushing cloud. He watched it go, then turned and entered Woermann Manor.
Wheedle gasped and wheezed.
‘You can’t be short of breath,’ Bladder said. ‘You don’t breathe.’
‘I’m having a heart attack.’
‘Paperwork,’ Mrs Petersen said.
‘What she said, panic attack. Gargoyles don’t have heart attacks neither.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Nearly five hundred years sure.’
They’d missed Sam by twenty minutes. The smell of him and that beastly Woermann filled the air. Mrs Petersen leaned against a car, repeating ‘paperwork, paperwork’ to herself.
‘She can see us,’ Wheedle puffed.
‘She can’t see no one,’ Bladder replied. ‘She’ll be in this state for another hour. Poor soul.’
‘Paperwork,’ Mrs Petersen agreed.
Spigot’s beak rose in the air and pointed east.
‘Yep, we gotta keep moving,’ Bladder said.
Wheedle struggled to speak. ‘But. We’ve. Lost. Him.’
Spigot walked over to a metal grate on the road and squawked long and high. Wheedle collapsed on the bitumen and Bladder went marble white.
It was a few seconds before Wheedle could say anything. Bladder stared at the drain.
‘You’re right, Spigot,’ said Wheedle. ‘There’s plenty of drain exits to the east and it would be quicker. Much quicker. We might get ahead of them. Or Sam might even be down there already.’
‘Nope, Woermann’s not going to take her straight to Maggie. He may be awful, but he’s not a monster. He won’t be able to get through the drains.’ Bladder shook his stony locks. ‘We’ve still got a little time. You’re both very brave, but you ain’t never been completely smashed. If you go down there, into The Hole, there’ll be ogres and goblins everywhere, an’ they all know Sam is part of a gargoyle pack. No gargoyle’s been back since Sam broke that sword. Any one of us goes down there gets massacred themselves. We are Enemy First Class. It’s not good Sam is gone off with that man, but we won’t do him no good if we all get demolished.’
‘So we follow along the street? Let’s get moving, then. Come on, come on.’ Wheedle still panted, but he rushed away, leading them between a parked Ford Escort and a VW bug. Spigot followed. Bladder sat for a few seconds at Mrs Petersen’s feet. ‘Paperwork,’ she said to him. He nodded in agreement, and studied the leaf-covered drain. He sniffed. The smell of monsters floated up, stale and manky.
It wasn’t a good idea, was it?
CHAPTER
12
Woermann led Sam through the foyer. The deep warmth of mahogany shone from the floor, and the walls were painted in muted gold. A huge mirror frame, reflecting Sam’s misery, appeared to be tarnished bronze (although Sam thought it was paint), and the carpet ran up the stairs in deep olive. Sam saw a living area to the right where more deep green rugs lay under leather chesterfields. The smell of furniture polish filled the space, and a huge fire burned at the end of the room.
‘I got my own place further north, but this is glorious. If all goes well, I might move here permanently. The weather’s nicer. I thought the money she was paying me to kidnap shifters was nice enough, but for you? Phew! You’re literally worth a king’s ransom. I don’t have to just rent a castle; I can own one!’ He threw his arms out to show Sam the grandeur of the place. The stench of fairy dust filled the hall; Woermann’s strut became longer, and his eyes grew large. Woermann was drunk on it. ‘This way.’
In a room at the top of the stairs, the man chucked Sam’s bag on the bed. ‘Here you are. It’s the second-best bedroom, but I’m led to believe that your presence in the house will be wanted sometime. I’m to tend to all your needs and keep you happy. Might as well get comfortable.’ Between his fingers he rolled a big brass key with a red ribbon through its eye. ‘I’m to treat you like a prince for the next few days, but that doesn’t mean you get to run around.’
Sam stared at the room. It was as opulent as the room below and contained a four-poster bed, its old, blackened posts carved with pictures of hunting. Over it, a navy velvet canopy fell and draped the sides. The bedcover, also navy, was threaded with gold, silver and soft grey. It showed a pack of large cats sleeping under a sky littered with tiny stars.
Sam pulled back the cover. The bed did have sweet-smelling sheets, but it wasn’t Michelle’s perfume.
‘The decor’s great,’ Woermann said. ‘But this is what I think will keep you happy.’
The biggest TV Sam had ever seen covered the opposite wall and black cords ran to a series of boxes with blinking blue and red lights. Woermann pointed at the glossy box next to it. A small fridge gleamed whitely at them.
Sam was more interested in the room’s window. It was large enough, and broken up into a series of little panes, what Michelle called a ‘divided-light window’. Sam went to it and touched the frame. It was paint. It had a hospital-style extendable arm, which meant it opened an inch and no more. Sam forced it again and it creaked but stuck.
‘It’ll hold well enough,’ Woermann said. ‘If you could break out, it’s still a solid three-storey drop. Don’t think I could fall all that way without breaking a bone. Maybe. And even if you somehow managed it, you have a strong smell and scrawny legs. Even with a day’s head start I’d hunt you down and bring you back. Don’t make me do that. I think I’m going to like to have you around. Someone to talk to. You do this goody-goody business, but there’s something nasty about you that I like.’
‘Can I see my friends?’
‘Later. I have things to do.’ Woermann gave a bone-freezing grin before he walked out into the corridor.
The lock clicked into place, and Sam was imprisoned.
‘But you promised,’ Sam yelled through the door. He hit the door.
Sam sneezed.
The room smelt of dust – not house dust, but magic dust tickling his nose, its power potent even in the leftovers settling on window sills and tables. Some of it smelt like the dust Woermann had waved at Mrs Petersen, but there was something raw and basic about it too.
Sam didn’t know if he could hate Woermann more.
He lay down on the bed on his belly and looked over the cover, the embroidery turning its surface into a landscape, the rising grey of feline backs and jaws. Small hillocks of white and yellow formed an array of stars. He ran his hand over it. It smelt of fresh air with the undercurrent of another dust on it as if someone had hung it outside to get the mausoleum smell out of it.
He cried for a bit, not out loud. If Woermann’s ears were good enough to hear around his own house, Sam didn’t want the monster to overhear him; he suspected it would please him too much. The patch of bedding under his eye became wetter and wetter, spreading until he felt his forehead and his cheek dampen. The strongest feeling, though, was the huge hurting in his torso. Breathing hurt. His back ached. His chest ached. His head felt hot and his heart had climbed, beating at the top of his chest as if it were working its way to the nearest exit. He wanted Michelle and Beatrice, Richard and Nick. He wanted Bladder and Wheedle and Spigot. He wanted his own bed and he wondered where Daniel was.
He awoke and saw the outside world had got a little darker. The house was also quiet and he wished he could hear one friendly voice.
Sam sat up and rummaged through his bag. His phone clicked on. Nick had made sure he charged it, and Sam stroked its shiny face. Click, click, click.
Michelle answered immediately. ‘Sam, darling?’
‘Hi, I’m here.’
‘Where’s here?’
‘Not far. We didn’t drive long.’
Michelle sighed. Happy. Disappointed. Sam didn’t know. He wished he could see her face. ‘Send some photos of where you are.’
‘OK.’
‘You’re just settling in, of course.’
Nick’s voice called in the background. ‘Is that Sam? Is it nice? He got you locked in a dungeon?’
‘Hi, Nick,’ Sam called back. ‘No, it’s a lovely room.’ He couldn’t lie. ‘I’ve got a TV, my own fridge.’
Nick groaned. ‘You won’t want to come back.’
‘Trust me, it’ll take more than a fridge to keep me away.’
‘How’re your dogs?’ Nick asked.
‘I haven’t seen them yet.’
‘What? I thought that’s why you went.’
‘Yeah, me too.’
‘Is everything OK? Just give us the address and Dad’ll come and get you.’
‘I’d really love to, but I …’
Sam stared at the gap in the window, too small to slip through, and even if he could, he was here because Wilfred, Hazel and Amira needed him.
‘Next time we FaceTime,’ Nick said. ‘OK?’
Sam wanted so much to see their faces, but if he saw theirs, they would see his was murky with tears.
‘I want to see what’s in your fridge,’ Nick said. ‘I want my own fridge.’
Woermann was at the door. He had entered as softly as a cat and Sam, with a phone against his ear straining to hear his family, had not heard the big man arrive.
‘Bye,’ Sam said. ‘Speak soon.’
‘Where are you … ?’
Woermann grabbed the phone and clicked the red symbol that closed the call. The Kavanagh voices were gone. Sam would have cried there and then, something to let out the sick feeling in his throat, but he remained determined not to let Woermann see him cry.
Woermann grinned. ‘That’s got to cheer you up. What else can I do to make your stay a little more pleasant?’ He put Sam’s phone in his back pocket. ‘What about a new computer?’
‘You’ve only been able to make me come here because you threatened my friends, seriously. Do you think I’d ask you for a new computer?’ Sam felt his cheeks heat. ‘Can I see my friends?’
‘Not yet, but I’m happy to give you a tour of the house.’
Sam thought about it. Actually, he did want to see the house. Not to admire it as Woermann would hope, but to see anything of use. Exactly where the shifters were, perhaps, and all points of escape. ‘Yeah, all right.’
Woermann’s grin widened. ‘We’re gonna get along beautifully. I can tell.’
The rest of the house was just as impressive. Open-beamed, wood-lined. Woermann showed him the top floor first, making sure Sam counted the bedrooms. He even let Sam lean out of the window overlooking the driveway. The window swung out wide, so Sam could see the road and beyond that the wide-open green areas around Woermann’s mansion. If he tried to run, he’d be exposed. Still, Sam found
himself more interested in the window. It had no hinge nor latch.
Woermann hustled Sam to the guests’ bathroom to show him golden taps and then to the heated indoor pool with a hot spa next to it.
‘Look at this,’ Woermann said. ‘Do you know anyone else that has their own indoor pool?’
Sam didn’t like the room, the bleach-stink in the air bit at his nose. His time with the gargoyles also didn’t help; rock sank in seconds in water. It wasn’t fun for them. Sam had gargoyle hearing and gargoyle eyes, it was likely he would sink too.
‘Maybe you could have a swim later,’ Woermann suggested.
‘Maybe,’ Sam replied.
The cold day outside made the huge warm room steamy, and the seats and marble floor looked damp. Michelle liked to look through magazines of houses of rich people, but if she came through something too excessive she’d mutter ‘tacky’. Sam saw this scene and muttered it too. He wasn’t sure the word was apt (and he wondered why Michelle spent time staring at houses she didn’t like) but he didn’t like Woermann’s excess and the word sounded bitter enough in his mouth to fit his mood.
‘People only say that when they can’t afford something.’ Woermann smiled and Sam suspected it was as phoney as the gold taps. ‘I don’t know what the queen wants of you, but if you do whatever she asks she’ll make you stinking rich. You could have your own pool.’
Sam stopped to look at Woermann. ‘I don’t really want any of this, I’d much rather have my family back.’
Woermann raised a bushy eyebrow at the last statement. ‘I can smell them on you, you know? You stink of them, especially the baby, but the services said you were fostered.’
‘Adopted,’ Sam said.
‘No one smells that much like someone unless the same blood runs through them, or you have some kind of magic. Is that why the queen wants you so much? You make yourself become like those around you? People don’t notice it at a conscious level, but it tricks them into bonding with you? No wonder she thinks you’re special.’ Woermann rubbed his hands together. ‘I’ve watched you too. You can smell any creature, hear like an animal; you could slip into a target’s home, a cuckoo. Is that what you are? Are you some kind of special shifter? One that flies with fairies? Can you fly?’
