The shimmering light of the moon kissed the tarmac, turning it silver, lighting his way as he wound down through wooded valleys and up over bare escarpments. No artificial lights glowed in the night anymore, except the beam of his bike’s headlamp. Life was so much simpler now, and that was how he liked it. No more decisions for him to make.
Decisions. They had been his downfall. If he had never had to make any, he might have been happy. Although, he reminded himself, there had never truly been any choices. Choice was an illusion. There had only been fate, sheer chance, driving him on to destiny.
He swung around the bend and brought his bike to a sudden halt. Up there on the next hill was a horse. Huge, white, magical in the moonlight, it was carved into the hillside like a dream. Was it real? Was he imagining it? It seemed to glow brighter as he looked.
The Brothers brought their bikes up beside him and followed his gaze.
‘Hey, look,’ said Meathook. ‘That sure is one fuck of a big horse.’
‘Yeah.’ Slasher nodded in agreement. ‘One giant motherfucker.’
So it was real then, not just a figment of his imagination. That was good. It was always good to know what was real, and what was false. These days, he could no longer be sure. He could no longer trust the voices in his head, for they were not always his.
He knew who the voices belonged to, though. Ghosts.
Dead souls wandered through the corridors of his mind, rattling chains and whispering in his mind’s ear. Sometimes truths, sometimes lies. Sometimes promises, sometimes threats. Always whispering, especially at night.
‘Look!’ said Meathook. ‘A fire.’
Warg Daddy looked. A small, sputtering camp fire burned on the hilltop above the horse.
People. Prey. He could see them from here. A group of men and women, some sitting, some dancing around the camp fire.
They were there for the taking. An easy kill. A narrow path led up the hillside and Warg Daddy traced it with his eyes. The path led right up to the camp. It was an invitation to slaughter.
Slasher licked his lips. ‘Shall we go?’
Warg Daddy hardly heard him. The ghosts had returned, more insistent than ever. Wombat, the fallen Brother, always so loyal, always with his head in a book. Wombat knew everything. Tales of the Norse gods, songs of the Valkyrie, the legend of Ragnarok.
‘The twilight of the gods,’ muttered Warg Daddy to himself. It had been Wombat’s favourite subject, almost the very last thing he’d talked about, just before Warg Daddy had led him to his death, that fateful night on Clapham Common.
‘Ragnarok: the falling of the world, when the great battle will unfold,’ intoned Warg Daddy, invoking Wombat’s own pronouncement. Had that already happened, or was it still to come? There had been a battle of sorts, although Warg Daddy had fled at the final moment from his role as commander-in-chief of the Wolf Army. Perhaps the great battle lay in the future. Maybe he would be forced to take up arms again. ‘Then the old gods will die and the world will be born anew.’
Meathook’s face creased in puzzlement. ‘Warg Daddy? What?’
A second ghost rattled his chains in the dusty attic that was Warg Daddy’s imagination. Snakebite. The ghost of Snakebite was mean and unforgiving, filled with a desire for vengeance and retribution. His face was a putrid mass of rotting flesh, with just one eye remaining to stare angrily at Warg Daddy. He clanked his chains noisily, filling Warg Daddy with fear. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Warg Daddy. ‘I’m sorry I killed you.’ For it had been he who blasted Snakebite’s brains out of the back of his skull with his combat shotgun. Had that been his decision? Or had it merely been fate? Could he honestly put all the blame on chance? ‘It was just bad luck, Snake. Just an unlucky draw of the cards.’
Slasher snapped his fingers in front of his face. ‘Warg Daddy? What’s wrong? Snap out of it!’
But now the third ghost had arrived, the one he feared the most. Leanna. She slid through the cracks in his skull like a wraith, clothed in ice, her hands blackened with cold. She wore a pale hood, silken, almost translucent. It covered her face, but she turned toward him now, slipping the cloth from her head. ‘No,’ he mumbled. But he couldn’t stop her. She pulled the hood fully away, so he could see. ‘No,’ he cried again. The hideous scarring on her cheek was worse than ever, crawling across her face like leprosy. Her ice blue eyes burned into his. ‘Traitor!’ she shrieked. ‘Back-stabber! Viper!’
Warg Daddy bowed his head. He was all those things, and worse.
Choices. He could not deny them. He had made them. They had been his.
He would not make any more.
Vixen shook him gently from behind. ‘Warg Daddy? What shall we do? Shall we go up the hill? There are people there. Shall we feed on them?’
They were staring at him. Slasher, Meathook, Bloodbath. All the Brothers, waiting for his choice.
‘You have to decide,’ said Vixen.
That was all he had to do. He was Leader of The Pack. His job was to make choices. But he would not. ‘No,’ he bellowed. Instead, he pulled the tarnished coin from his pocket. It was only a small, rusty piece of metal, and yet it held his future. His fate would be decided by its spin. He flipped it into the night, not even bothering to watch as the moonlight caught its faces. Dark, light, dark, light. Why watch? The gods had already made their decision. All that was left was for him to find out.
The coin came to rest on the back of his hand. It was done. He glanced back up at the hilltop where the fire burned bright above the white horse, then looked down to discover his destiny. ‘Drive on,’ he said.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Stoke Park, Buckinghamshire
Chanita could scarcely believe the decision she had made. It felt like madness, but she knew that it was the only way. It had taken a long and heated debate with Helen, lasting well into the night, to convince her that this was right.
It wasn’t just James demonstrating his ability to change from human to wolf and back again that had finally persuaded her. It wasn’t even his calm demeanour and the fact that she had known and liked him when she had treated him in hospital, back in London.
It was simply that she had no better options.
The camp had run out of medicines, and disease was now rampant. There was little the doctors could do to stop its spread. The people in the camp were weakened by hunger, and by the insanitary, crowded conditions, which made a breeding ground for infections of all kinds. If she did not act, the camp would surely fall.
The next morning, she called a crisis meeting of the camp’s military and civilian leaders to discuss the situation.
The first to speak was Lieutenant Colonel Sharman. The military leader acknowledged Chanita and the others in the room with a curt nod. His face was tight, and his eyes clearly wore the strain of the past weeks. ‘As you already know, my men are struggling to locate new sources of food and other essential supplies, especially medicines. Each day we are being forced to venture further and further afield, and almost every day we come under attack from armed werewolves. At first it was difficult for me to grasp why the enemy did not simply launch attacks on the camp itself. Despite our heavy military presence, it is not easy for us to secure such a large perimeter, and it would have been relatively easy for the werewolves to make incursions into the camp under cover of night. On the night of the full moon especially, I feared an all-out assault, but none came.
‘Now I understand their strategy. It’s a scorched earth policy. They’re burning hospitals, medical centres and other locations where medicines are stored, and also destroying sources of food like warehouses so we can’t easily reach fresh supplies. Instead of attacking us here, where we have a strategic advantage, they’re forcing us to travel ever further, and picking us off one by one. We thought we were safe inside the camp because they didn’t try to invade us, but all this time they’ve been conducting siege warfare. Now the reality is clear – we cannot continue to sustain the population within the camp.’
&nbs
p; Grim-faced, the colonel returned to his seat.
One of the civilian leaders rose to speak. ‘What are you saying, Colonel? That we must leave the camp? If the camp breaks up, many people will die. They will have no food, no medical treatment, no protection from the werewolves. Are you saying we should simply abandon them to their fate?’
The colonel rose. ‘No, that is not what I am saying. But something must change. We cannot continue as we have been. You know yourself that by keeping the people here, we are condemning them to a slow death, either from malnutrition, or disease, or ultimately, when we are too weakened to resist, slaughter at the hands of our enemy.’
He paused and cleared his throat. ‘There is a way out. Those of you who know their military history will be aware that sieges usually end in a negotiation and surrender. It makes no difference whether it’s a medieval siege of a castle, or a modern hostage situation. Negotiation is the only solution, and is what we must turn to, before it is too late.’ He threw a look in Chanita’s direction. ‘Colonel Griffin would have understood that. Any commanding officer would.’
An uproar erupted in the meeting – ‘How can we negotiate with monsters?’ – ‘They seek only to kill and eat us!’
The colonel shook his head. ‘There is always a bargaining chip, if we have the courage to look for it.’
More outcries greeted this statement – ‘You mean that some of us must be sacrificed to save the rest!’ – ‘Outrageous!’
Chanita brought the meeting to silence. ‘There is another way forward, that does not involve surrender.’
She stopped, aware of the immense burden resting on her shoulders. She wished that Colonel Griffin could be at her side. She needed him now more than ever. His courage and conviction would surely carry the meeting with him. She did not possess half his persuasive powers, but she took comfort from the fact that he had left her in charge, confident that she had the capability to do the job. She must not fail him now.
‘Lieutenant Colonel Sharman is correct in his assessment. If we continue as we are, many of us will die of disease or starvation. If we surrender the camp, many of us may be killed by our enemy. We no longer have medicines. But a miracle cure is available to us. A walking miracle. I would like to introduce you to James Beaumont.’
The door to the room opened, and James entered, uncaged and unbound, and led by Helen with Sarah following.
‘James is a lycanthrope,’ announced Chanita, ‘and his blood provides a way to cure all those in the camp who are sick.’
A gasp rose up from her audience and people began to cower back, or step forward, guns raised. Chanita called out for them to stop. ‘James poses no threat to us. He is different to the other lycanthropes. He possesses the ability to control his form, choosing wolf or human at will. He has learned to live on animals, and does not eat human flesh.’
The people in the room seemed only partially reassured.
Chanita beckoned for Helen to lead James up to where she stood. ‘Doctor Helen Eastgate will now outline her proposal. Helen?’
She sat and listened as Helen explained the plan to a sceptical meeting. It was simple enough to grasp. Inject micro-doses of lycanthropic blood into those who were sick, sufficiently diluted to avoid the usual effects of anaphylactic shock. The patients treated with James’ blood would become lycanthropic like him, but they would live, and they would share his ability to control their urges.
One of the doctors walked out before Helen even finished speaking. ‘I would rather let my patients die than turn them into werewolves!’ he shouted. Several others joined him and left the room.
But Chanita was undaunted. She still had her strongest card to play. James.
When Helen had finished speaking and answering questions, James took the stage. And, as he had done for her, he turned himself into wolf form for all to see.
Most of the people in the room fell back in panic as a wolf appeared in their midst. Once again some of the soldiers took aim with their guns.
Chanita went to James and kneeled at his side, rubbing his fur with her hand. ‘Watch!’ She placed her fingers inside his mouth, while James sat calmly, his pink tongue lolling out, saliva drooling. Helen and Sarah took it in turns to do the same as her.
A few of the other people in the room were brave enough to approach James and touch him for themselves. Eventually Colonel Sharman himself came up and allowed James to lick his hand.
‘This is our future,’ Chanita told the meeting. ‘It may not be the future we would have chosen, but it is the only one available to us. The alternative is death.’
Chapter Forty-Nine
London, quarter moon
London was a ravaged city, a haunted landscape populated with skeletal buildings and the dust of the dead. Wherever the Prime Minister roamed, she found fresh devastation. It had been a shock as she first began walking, with Big Ben behind her. Every step brought her a new image of destruction.
One of her greatest shocks had been to come face to face with Buckingham Palace, the London home of the British monarchy. It had never been her favourite landmark, but it was one of the most famous. Now the eighteenth-century structure was half collapsed, exposing its many elaborately-furnished rooms to the wind and the rain. Glimpses of gold and marble interiors were visible as she peered through the iron gates that still stood before it, even though the rest of the surrounding fence lay in mangled ruins.
So much had been lost. She wondered if it could ever be repaired. Centuries of building, of progress and civilization all gone. Might it be rebuilt one day? Or would it turn into a shrine to the past, to be reclaimed by nature? She thought of those ancient ruins of the Incas in the jungles of South America, and of the abandoned cities around Chernobyl within the radioactive exclusion zone. The General had promised her that the radioactive fallout from the bombs would be minimal, but she had only his word for that. For all she knew she was soaking up a fatal dose right now. She could do nothing about that, except keep going forward.
In places she discovered charred bodies, burned to a crisp, unrecognizable. Twisted metal frames that had perhaps once been cars littered the roadways. Fire-blackened facades of buildings teetered over her, looking as though a strong gust of wind would bring them crashing down. And covering it all was a thick layer of dust, turning everything grey.
In parts of the city, black columns of smoke still rose, even though it had been more than a month since the fires had first taken hold. Perhaps they would be like fires in a coal mine, continuing to burn slowly for years.
After a while she stopped seeing the details of the destruction. Most of it was impossible to identify in any case. She had lost track of which road she was on, could not even tell if she was still following a road. The mounds of debris spread out everywhere.
When night came she broke into her rations, then removed her boots and wrapped herself in layers of warm clothing to shelter in the lee of a broken wall. She fell asleep dreaming of the sounds of traffic, and of voices and music, of the hustle and bustle of a city she had once loved.
She awoke with a start, her heart pumping, her ears straining for the noise that had woken her. There it was again, a real sound, not a dream. A human voice.
She was on her feet in a moment. She looked around the empty street, scanning the jagged walls and fallen masonry, searching for movement. Soon two figures came into view, a man and a woman, scrabbling over the mounds of rubble, talking to each other.
They stopped when they saw her and grew wary. Both wore dirty clothes, and had long unkempt hair, the man thickly bearded, tinged with grey.
‘Hey!’ called Greybeard. ‘What are you doing here? This is our patch.’ He came toward her, unfriendly, threatening.
The PM struggled to pull her boots on.
‘What you got in there?’ asked his companion, a woman with red hair braided into dreadlocks. She pointing to the PM’s rucksack. ‘Whatever you got, it’s ours now.’
Greybeard reached out for it.
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The PM snatched it from his grasp.
‘Hey,’ said Dreadlocks suddenly. ‘I don’t fucking believe it. It’s her! She did this!’
‘What?’ said Greybeard. ‘Who?’
‘Don’t you recognize her? It’s the fucking Prime Minister!’
‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’
They both stared at her, incredulity on their faces. ‘You’re right,’ said Greybeard at last.
A second later, Dreadlocks was screeching at the top of her voice. ‘I always knew you politicians were the scum of the earth, but I never thought you would stoop so low as to bomb your own people.’
‘I didn’t,’ said the PM. ‘I promise you I had nothing to do with this. In fact I tried to prevent it. You must believe me.’
‘Believe you? I never believed a single word you’ve ever said. Politicians are all liars, but you’re the worst. And you’re a mass murderer too. You’re the biggest mass murderer in all of history.’
‘Look how short she is,’ said Greybeard. ‘She’s nothing. A nobody. No better than anyone else. Whatever gave her the right to boss everyone around?’
‘Democracy,’ said the PM. ‘The people chose me as their leader.’
Greybeard spat on the ground. ‘Bullshit.’
‘Listen to me,’ began the PM. ‘I tried to –’
‘Shut it! I don’t want to hear.’ Greybeard came forward, fists clenched. ‘You murdered millions of people. Well now it’s your turn to die.’
The PM reached for her holster and pulled out the pistol. She held it steady, aimed at the man’s head. ‘Don’t move any closer. Step back.’
He stopped, thwarted, but Dreadlocks was too furious to hold back. She ran forward, scooping up a broken brick as she closed.
The roar of the pistol was deafening, and it jerked in the PM’s hand, almost flying from her fingers.
Dreadlocks fell back, a bullet hole in her head, a look of surprise on her face.
Greybeard paused for a second, then lunged forward, mad with rage.
Lycanthropic (Book 4): Moon Rise [The Age of the Werewolf] Page 21
