Anita raised another objection. She pointed out that if there were shapeshifting people all over the world, the planet must be riddled with singularities nobody had yet detected. Tara reluctantly conceded that point, but noted that a singularity was, by definition, a point where the laws of physics did not apply, so they could be undetectable.
“But they turn people into wolves when requested?” Anita said archly. “What helpful little space-time anomalies. Do they do impressions, balloon animals—maybe children’s parties?”
Again, Tara made a lunge, and Anita dodged.
“Okay,” Tara conceded. “Singularities are a very long shot. We’d have to assume their powers were somehow amenable to human psychic ability or whatever. But there is another possibility—the multiverse. That’s the idea that this universe is one of an infinite number of parallel universes. And conditions in these other universes might vary in all sorts of ways from the universe we know.”
Anita threw some rings back into an ornate wooden box and pondered this idea. They had discussed a lot of way-out scientific ideas in the past, including the multiverse. Tara now wondered how much had sunk in. She recalled telling Anita that each universe might be nested alongside the others like books on a shelf. And like books, they all conformed to a type, a basic form. But also, like books, they all had unique contents. Some would be very similar to our book-universe, but many others would differ in strange and disturbing ways. The history of our world might have been different in millions of ways, after all.
“You mean, like a world where the Nazis won the war?” Anita said finally. “How does that help rationalize lycanthropy? Or are we talking about Nazi werewolves, because if so…”
“No, God no!” Tara exclaimed. “No, listen…”
She explained that if parallel universes were sufficiently different from our own, what we might consider magic would be their equivalent of physics. There could be a world where wishing something would happen made it so, for instance. Perhaps magic, she speculated, could somehow leak into our world and allow paranormal phenomena to happen, albeit in a haphazard and localized way.
Anita looked at Tara with raised eyebrows and took a few moments to reply.
“Okay, Girl Einstein,” she said. “I found a flaw in your argument. You haven’t said ‘quantum’ yet. It only counts as a genuine crackpot theory if you add the word quantum to it. Then you get to talk about it on YouTube and maybe get into a slanging match with some Flat Earthers.”
Knowing the mockery was justified, Tara closed her eyes and groaned.
“I know, I’m reaching so hard! But it’s crazy. Monsters shouldn’t exist, but they’re real. I believe there must be a rational explanation for every mystery. Even the crazy ones. Especially the crazy ones.”
Anita shrugged, got up off the bed, and started gathering up the chains and rings Tara had turned down.
“All I know is, here we are in London in the twenty-first century, and you’re tooling yourself up with silver because werewolves don’t like it. By the way, does the dishy professor wear any protective stuff? Charms, that kind of thing?”
Tara raised herself up on one elbow.
“I wouldn’t describe him as dishy,” she said. “And I don’t think so. But I never asked. Hell, he could have an amazing collection of amulets under all that tweed.”
Her phone rang.
“It’s him!” she said, checking the screen. “Oops! I forgot to call him back before.”
“Talk of the devil,” Anita responded, in a mock-spooky voice. “Come on, share!”
Tara put Mortlake on speaker, so they both heard his apology. Then he asked Tara to meet him and a friend, who would be leading the rescue mission. They fixed a time and place, but Mortlake would not be drawn on who this friend was.
“Suffice to say he’s ex-military and competent at the rough stuff.”
Anita was making faces at Tara, and at the mention of “rough stuff”, she started to make some very rude gestures. Tara managed to end the call without laughing.
“So now you’ve got a tweedy intellectual and a big strong soldier,” Anita remarked. “Any room for me in your monster-hunting club?”
***
They met in a pub in the East End of London, an area that had once had a reputation for crime and general sleaze. It had been extensively gentrified, but there were still a few rough edges. The pub, the Mother Redcap, seemed to combine both aspects of the area. On this Wednesday afternoon, it was busy but not crowded, modern without being brash; its clientele diverse and not too noisy.
Mortlake was sitting at a corner table with a well-dressed stranger. This was Sammy, a big black guy with a friendly but shrewd manner. He surprised Tara by getting up to shake her hand, the first time a Brit had done this. He seemed even bigger standing, around at least six-four. His handshake was gentle, which she had half-expected. In her experience, big men seldom tried to show how strong they were unless they were total jerks.
“Nice to meet you, Sammy,” she said, sitting. “You’re not quite what I expected. Kind of guessed you’d be the hard-bitten mercenary type.”
“Got my grandma to thank for my manners,” he said with a grin. “Old school Jamaican lady, always taught me to be polite. Clip ’round the ear if I was rude.”
“And the army,” Mortlake put in, “taught Sammy the skills required for our little commando raid. Sammy is a veteran of Her Majesty’s forces, as I mentioned.”
Sammy rolled his eyes, and Tara got the impression that he had been asked about his service record many times. But she was curious as to how two such different characters as Sammy and Mortlake would end up working together.
“Okay,” said the big man. “Short version. I was in Afghanistan a few years ago. I saw something—experienced something I couldn’t explain. Whatever it was, it followed me back to England. Haunted me, if you like. A friend of a friend put me in touch with the prof here, and he helped. Since then, I’ve done him the odd favor.”
Sammy took a big swig from a pint of beer. The light in the Mother Redcap was subdued, and it was only now Tara saw that the left side of Sammy’s face bore some faint parallel scars. Four of them, each a few inches long, as if fingertips had dug into his cheek just below his eye and cut deep into the flesh.
“Yeah,” he said, again quick to read her expression. He half-raised a hand self-consciously but then dropped it to the table before actually touching his cheek. “It was a bad time. I nearly went over the edge, I don’t mind saying. I owe the prof big time for saving me. So, this wolf-girl, we’ll get her out. And it’ll be good to have a young woman there, as it’s men who’ve done all the bad stuff to her. Maybe she’ll trust you, or at least not be too suspicious. It would help, though, if I knew what we were up against.”
Mortlake explained that Lonely had found out how many staff were at Gonfallon’s house. There were reportedly two heavies on the staff, one of whom had recently lost an eye and had only just returned to work. The others were a mixture of servants such as cooks, gardeners, and cleaners, all of whom lived in Wyebridge. All had been warned to stay out of the cellar, and they assumed there was some kind of wild beast being kept there.
“And, as a rule, most of these domestics won’t be there at all if His Lordship is in London,” Mortlake added. “That means only the two serious opponents, with three eyes between them. Not such bad odds!”
Sammy shook his head.
“Come on prof, you know the real problem is the girl. If she goes frantic and wolfs out, what do we do? How do we protect ourselves, any innocent bystanders, save her, and keep her safe until we somehow get her back to her people? This feels like a half-arsed plan right now. As my old corporal liked to say, we need it at three-quarters arse, minimum.”
Mortlake looked uncomfortable.
“I have tried my best, but the problem is that the girl’s people can’t be contacted directly,” he admitted. “I have friends from the east—good, reliable people I’ve worked with before. Th
ey’ve agreed to collect the girl from a safe house in London, but it’s up to us to get her there. They’ll take her back to Romania. And they’re on the clock, what with their activities being illegal. Another reason we can’t really leave it any longer. Time is not on our side—it never has been.”
Tara agreed.
“Apart from anything else,” she pointed out, “Gonfallon might just kill her. We’ve drawn some attention to him, his estate. He could never explain her away if the authorities found her. We set the clock ticking by getting involved. Well, I did…”
“The poor kid might be dead already,” said Sammy bluntly. “That’s the real issue. And how does this werewolf thing work, prof? Can’t Gonfallon recruit members to his nasty little club himself? Then he wouldn’t need her.”
Mortlake shook his head firmly.
“If that were possible, why bother bringing her all the way to England in the first place? It would have been far easier for Gonfallon to have her held somewhere in the Balkans and fly out to be bitten by her, then leave her there and do the rest himself. No, she’s the source of the infection. With her people, the condition is hereditary, but with Gonfallon and his sick friends, it must be acquired.”
Tara thought that was a very neat distinction, but she wondered if it really applied in reality. She had come across a lot of very attractive theories in her studies, yet sometimes, their neatness did not survive a collision with hard facts. She said nothing, though, as Mortlake was undoubtedly more experienced. And they were going to rescue the girl, regardless.
“Okay,” said Sammy. “Let’s assume we get her out, sedated preferably—does she speak English? No, because of this secret tribe thing. And we have no way of talking to her because we don’t know what language she speaks. She’ll be terrified. That’s a factor, right?”
“God, yeah,” Tara said. “Powerful emotion triggers the transformation. It did with Alfred.”
Sammy chuckled.
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just… Gotobed… What a great name for a shape-shifting monster.”
Mortlake reassured them. They would be able to get the girl out of the country. Between them, he and Sammy spoke a wide array of languages. And, if that didn’t help, sedation was an option. Tara felt uncomfortable about that.
“Isn’t it risky, giving drugs to someone who’s been drugged already and badly mistreated?”
“It’s a last resort,” Mortlake insisted. “And the lesser evil. It may be that she will grasp we are rescuing her—she’s not an idiot, after all. She’s a human being, essentially, living under a terrible hereditary curse.”
“Yeah,” Sammy said, speculatively. “And maybe she’s got, you know, some kind of sixth sense that’ll tell her we’re on her side? Just a thought. Mindless optimism not really my thing, but I just thought I’d throw it in.”
Tara did not press the point. Instead, they talked about tactics, plans, and timings. They agreed that since Gonfallon and his friends went to the estate at weekends, it was sensible to strike during the week. Sammy professed himself ready to go. Tara seconded that. But Mortlake looked less certain.
“What is it?” Tara asked finally. “I get that you’re worried about something going wrong, but is there something else? Maybe something more specific?”
Sammy looked down into his beer at that. Tara sensed that she had touched a nerve when Mortlake gave a stiff smile.
“Some years ago, I—I lost someone. She was a research assistant, and she was more than a friend to me. She was young and intelligent and very keen to help,” Mortlake explained hesitantly. “Ever since then, I’ve been reluctant to let people take risks in what seems very like a madcap crusade against paranormal evil. So, perhaps you should be in the rear of our little platoon, perhaps handling communications back in the vehicle, that sort of thing?”
Tara reached out a hand and laid it gently on his.
“I’m sorry you lost someone,” she said firmly. “And I guess it wasn’t easy to let me onboard. But I assume this person decided for herself whether to take risks? And I can’t un-see what I’ve seen, forget what I know. I couldn’t go back to normal life without at least trying to stop those guys or save that girl. And I promise I’ll be careful.”
Mortlake was looking down at her hand and didn’t speak. She turned her attention to the younger man.
“Hey, Sammy, I’ll let you make the call,” she said. “You think I’m not up to this, I’ll stay away. But bear in mind, I’ve faced the beasts and survived. Twice.”
Sammy gazed levelly at her for a few moments, then nodded slightly. He raised a hand to his cheek and this time rubbed at the scars as if they troubled him.
“I’m not getting the same vibe from you as I got from—from the person we’re talking about,” he said. “She was clever, but she was all about herself. And she hadn’t been touched by the dark world. Not when she started, at least.”
Seeing Tara’s puzzlement, he shrugged.
“The prof calls it the paranormal, supernatural, metaphysical. Big words, but they just mean a mystery we’ve always been scared of but can’t stop picking at. I call it the dark world. It’s the world we all know is nearby, lurking in the shadows, but we pretend it isn’t because most people would go bonkers if they thought about it much. Doesn’t matter what words you use. We all know it’s real. But you and me, and the prof here—we’ve seen it up close, and it touched us and changed us. That sets us apart, and we’ve got no choice in that. We’re better off sticking together.”
There was a pause of a few moments. Then they resumed their planning. It was agreed that Sammy would provide some weaponry—no guns, but in his words, “just about anything else that can seriously annoy people”. He also offered to give Tara some unarmed combat lessons.
“The prof needs a refresher course, too,” the veteran added. “It’s been a while since I hurled you to the mat, eh, Marcus?”
Mortlake finished his orange juice and slammed the glass down decisively.
“Ready when you are,” he said. “But first, I have an appointment in Kensington. My ride should be along shortly.”
“Need any help?” Sammy asked.
“No, I think I’ll be safe enough,” Mortlake said. “Public place, he’ll have to behave. Why don’t you two get to know each other better? Tara would love to see all those pictures of your children, Sammy. Last time, there were about a hundred, as I recall.”
After he left, Tara asked Sammy the obvious question.
“What exactly happened to this person who was definitely nothing like me?”
Sammy finished his pint and leaned back in his chair, which creaked in protest.
“Cassandra,” he said. “She was bad news. Look, it’s not my place to tell you. He’ll open up when it suits him. The point is, he trusted her, got as close as anyone can get. And she hurt him. So, he spent a long time trying to rely on people as little as possible. Which is fine when you’re a superhero, but real people get older, slow down, and they need help eventually.”
“He’s got you,” Tara pointed out.
“Yeah, but I’ve got a life,” Sammy said. “I got a wife who’s mad enough to actually love me, two perfect little girls—I can show you a lot more than a hundred pics of them on my phone. I’ve got to provide for them, and the prof can’t pay me that kind of money. So, I do him the odd favor. All the people who help him have these—well, limitations.”
Tara thought about Monty Carrington and nodded. They changed the subject by mutual consent, and she started to ask him how to disable an opponent bare-handed, and then, with various everyday household objects.
***
Mortlake arrived outside the Grenadier around a quarter to seven. He asked his Uber driver to drop him around the corner. It was a gloomy January evening, and the pavements were slick with rain. He checked the interior, saw staff setting out a large table, no sign of any clientele. He rehearsed what he wanted to say, already feeling frustration and despair, knowing that he would be
rebuffed.
“I have to try,” he muttered. “Regardless.”
A woman passed him, gave him a suspicious look.
I do talk to myself a lot, he thought. If it’s really the first sign of madness, well, then I’ve been going mad for quite a while…
A sleek BMW drew up outside the restaurant and three men got out. One took a while because he was using crutches. Mortlake guessed this was the Honorable Charles Belmont. As the trio got closer, he recognized Gonfallon in the lead, strolling casually as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Here goes nothing, quite possibly, Mortlake thought, and stepped forward, putting himself just outside the door of the Grenadier. Gonfallon recognized him at once.
“Ah, the troublesome ghost hunter!”
The lord turned to his companions.
“This is the pestilential person I told you about. The professor from Cambridge. That place has always been a hotbed of second-rater pseudo-intellectual poseurs. It’s Oxford that produces our nation’s movers and shakers, while Cambridge just churns out traitors with limp wrists.”
The others laughed, but Mortlake sensed their hesitancy. Belmont, in particular, looked uncomfortable.
“Much as I enjoy this brilliant repartee, I won’t keep you,” Mortlake said. “I just wanted to let you know that I am willing to help you all, if I can.”
Gonfallon stared for a moment, then laughed.
“What makes you think we need your help, Professor?” he sneered. “We’re perfectly fine, thank you. You can help by not sticking your nose into matters that don’t concern you.”
Mortlake took a step closer. The light above the restaurant door produced a yellow gleam in Gonfallon’s eyes. He wondered if any cure was possible in reality. But he could not rule it out.
“If I can help you, save any of you from what you’ve done to yourselves, I will,” he said loudly, not caring about the passersby. “Because you’re on the path of death. Of blood, and violence. The path of the beast. And deep down, you all know that’s wrong. You’ve disfigured your souls with lust for killing and, now, you’re trapped in a cage of your own depravity!”
Wolfsbane: Supernatural Suspense with Scary & Horrifying Monsters (Mortlake Series Book 1) Page 14
