Lycanthropic (Book 1): Wolf Blood

by Morris, Steve

  Idiots. The conclusions were obvious, as was the nature of the murder weapon. This teenager, James Beaumont, was obviously a werewolf, and he had killed the priest with his own bare hands and teeth.

  Chris did a quick search to find the location of the church. Mayfield Avenue in South London. It wasn’t far from where Chris lived. His tracking app had already identified the local area as a werewolf hotspot. The new data totally fitted the emerging pattern.

  Another news article appeared in his feed and Chris clicked it open enthusiastically. A second murder, this time in North London. The location was different, but as in the first murder, the body of the man had been badly mutilated, with no attempt made to conceal the body. The police were refusing to confirm a connection between the two murders but there were so many obvious similarities that the newspapers had already made the link. The killings were so gruesome that the headline writers were calling the murderer the Ripper.

  Chris sent the second article to Seth and waited for a response. The situation was deteriorating even faster than he had thought. In just a few months the incidents had progressed from wolf sightings to bite attacks, and now to a series of savage murders. The apocalypse was surely just around the corner.

  A reply from Seth arrived in his mailbox and he clicked it open. ‘No mention of werewolves,’ Seth had written. ‘Police remain open-minded.’

  Chris bashed out a contemptuous reply. ‘Not open-minded, just empty-headed. Of course they didn’t mention werewolves. They are idiots.’ He hit the send button angrily. The police had no clue, and neither did Seth. He wondered why he even bothered.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Fifth floor, Ragstone Tower, South London, quarter moon

  After his narrow escape from the Headmaster, Vijay desperately wanted to leave Drake behind too, but that was proving harder than he’d expected. Drake had insisted on taking Vijay back to the high-rise concrete apartment building he called home.

  Vijay stood nervously on the fifth-floor walkway of the building, drawing his collar up against the cold. The walkway has half open to the elements. He wondered how Drake could stand the winter weather with nothing to cover his head except for his closely-cropped fine hair. The wind gusted hard at this height, blowing discarded food packaging and other litter around the grey space, swirling it into a heap near the dark stairwell at the end of the walkway. He peered cautiously over the concrete wall that lined the walkway’s edge, and saw the tops of bare trees, and beyond them more identical concrete towers. A mass of grey clouds crawled low across the sky, promising rain.

  ‘Come in here,’ said Drake, unlocking the door to his apartment and beckoning Vijay inside.

  Vijay followed. Drake led him through another door and into his bedroom. It wasn’t a bit like Vijay’s own room, which was full of books and old toys, with a desk by the window where he did his homework in the evenings. Drake’s room was almost bare, with just some torn posters of rappers and wrestling stars on the wall, and a TV with a games console at the foot of his bed.

  ‘I just need to get some clothes and stuff,’ said Drake, grabbing jeans and T-shirts and stuffing them into a duffle bag.

  ‘What for?’ asked Vijay suspiciously.

  ‘I can’t stay here,’ said Drake. ‘What if the Headmaster comes looking for me?’

  ‘Where then?’ asked Vijay, but the question seemed to have an obvious answer.

  ‘I’ll come back to your place.’

  ‘But what if the Headmaster comes looking at my house?’ demanded Vijay.

  Drake shrugged. ‘Your house is safer than here.’

  Vijay nodded uncertainly. This really wasn’t working out the way he’d expected. ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ he asked. ‘Haven’t you got any friends you can stay with?’

  Drake shook his head. ‘Ash is dead now, so you’re the only friend I’ve got.’

  Drake Cooper as a friend. That was a bit of a leap. But now that Vijay thought about it, Ash was really the only person Drake had ever talked to. Apart from Vijay of course, if you could call that talking. Vijay had always thought of Drake as a popular kid, but the reality was that he actually had no friends.

  ‘You and me, we’re the only ones what know what happened, right?’ continued Drake.

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘So we need to stick together, yeah?’

  ‘But you can’t just leave home and not tell anyone,’ said Vijay. ‘Your parents are going to go out of their minds if you just disappear.’

  ‘Yeah?’ said Drake. ‘You sure of that?’ He pushed past Vijay and into the hallway that led to the other rooms in the dingy apartment. ‘My dad’s long gone. My mum’s got a new boyfriend, who’s a complete twat. She don’t need me. I don’t need her.’

  ‘You’ve still got to tell her, though. You’ve got to leave a note or something at least.’ Vijay followed Drake into the kitchen, where he seemed to be searching for something.

  ‘I’ll leave a note if it makes you happy, yeah? If she wants to speak to me, she can always call me on my phone,’ said Drake, rummaging through the kitchen drawers. He pulled out a bulging brown envelope sealed with an elastic band. ‘This is what I need.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Vijay, eyeing the envelope with trepidation.

  Drake ripped off the elastic band and shook the contents of the envelope onto the worktop. A wad of money fell out. Without bothering to count it, Drake grabbed the money and stuffed it into his jeans pocket.

  ‘Are you stealing that?’ asked Vijay with a frown.

  Drake gave him a sullen look. ‘Not stealing, just claiming it.’ When Vijay continued to look unhappy, he explained, ‘It’s emergency money, yeah? So this is an emergency. I need it more than she does.’

  When Vijay said nothing, Drake walked past him back into the hallway. ‘Come on. Let’s get out of here.’

  Vijay trailed after him, leaving the grim concrete building behind. He wondered what Rose Hallibury would think if she could see him and his arch tormentor skipping class and running away from school together. Would her emerald eyes laugh or frown? Would her red hair bob with amusement or would her button nose wrinkle in disapproval?

  Vijay could barely work out how all this had happened. One minute he’d been sitting outside the Headmaster’s office, ready to tell Mr Canning that Drake and Ash had bullied him. Now, some forty minutes later, Ash was dead and Drake was coming home to live with him. He wondered if this was all just some kind of hallucination.

  When they arrived at Vijay’s house, things began to feel more real, but even less comprehensible. ‘This is my friend, Drake,’ he explained to his mum, indicating the boy with ripped jeans and cropped fair hair, his hands thrust into his front pockets. ‘He needs to stay with me for a day or so.’

  His mother regarded Drake as if he were a puzzle to be solved.

  ‘If it’s okay with you, Mrs Singh,’ said Drake politely.

  ‘Of course it is, Drake. Only, do your parents know that you are coming to stay?’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ said Drake. ‘At least, that is, my mum.’

  ‘I see,’ said Vijay’s mother. ‘I’m afraid we don’t have much space in the house, but you can sleep in Vijay’s room. We can find an old camp bed and some blankets for you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Vijay to Drake. ‘Let’s go upstairs.’

  They went up to Vijay’s room and sat down on the bed.

  ‘So this is home,’ said Drake, slinging his duffle bag into the corner of the room.

  ‘What are we going to do now?’ asked Vijay. ‘We need to tell my mum what happened, and yours too. We need to call the police and tell them about Mr Canning. We have to …’

  ‘No,’ said Drake, cutting him off. ‘There’s no point.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Vijay.

  ‘No one would believe us.’

  Vijay sighed. Drake might well be right. Who would swallow such a far-fetched story? The police would never accept that the
Headmaster of a local school had eaten one of his students. And even if they did investigate, what would they find? Mr Canning sitting in his office, chewing Ash’s leg? More likely they would find nothing. Most likely, they wouldn’t even bother to look. And where would that leave Vijay and Drake? In deeper trouble than ever.

  ‘But what if Mr Canning comes looking for us?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t reckon he will,’ said Drake. ‘He won’t risk it. I reckon he’ll keep well away.’

  Vijay nodded mutely. He was only just beginning to understand the full horror of what had happened.

  ‘I know some places we can go when we’re supposed to be at school,’ said Drake. ‘It’s only a couple of weeks until the end of term. Then we should be safe.’

  Drake was probably right. Their best chance was to lie low, stay away from school, and hope that somehow Mr Canning would be discovered soon. Ash’s parents would report him missing, or perhaps another teacher would raise the alarm.

  ‘Your mum seems nice,’ said Drake.

  ‘Oh? I guess.’

  ‘You got any other family? This is a big house.’

  ‘There’s my dad of course,’ said Vijay. ‘And my older sister, Aasha. They’ll both be home later. And my grandmother lives with us too.’

  ‘Happy families,’ said Drake.

  ‘Yeah, I guess we are.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Marsh Lane Kennels, Brixton, South London

  Rose Hallibury worked at the Marsh Lane Kennels whenever she wasn’t at school, and Saturday was always the busiest day of the week. It was hard work but she loved it, and she loved the dogs too, as if they were her own. Today though, something was wrong. The dogs paced around their kennels nervously. The little dogs like the Terriers and the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel whimpered gently. The big Irish Setter barked and howled. They could sense something. They were frightened.

  Rose twisted her copper hair nervously around her slim finger. ‘What’s wrong with them?’ she asked Anna, the kennels manager. ‘What are they frightened of?’ She patted the dogs and tried to calm them down.

  ‘We haven’t got time to worry about that now,’ Anna told Rose. Saturday was the day most of the dog owners came to drop off their pets, or to collect them again. Rose had to help Anna get all the dogs ready for collection by ten o’clock and clean out the kennels ready for the new arrivals.

  But Rose couldn’t help worrying. She had never seen dogs behave like that for no reason. They could hear or smell something bad, or sense it some other way. Something was out there, something dangerous.

  ‘Come on,’ said Anna briskly. ‘Let’s get to work.’

  Rose studied the timetable that Anna had drawn up, showing which dogs were due to be collected, so she could wash them and feed them ready for pick-up. She unbolted the door of the Irish Setter and went inside its kennel. The kennel was a good size, almost like a tiny hotel room, with a dog bed and a feeding area. The dogs had an outside space where they could run about too, and in the summer Rose took them out for longer walks.

  The Setter bowed its head when Rose entered, and backed into the corner of the room, whimpering. ‘It’s all right, girl,’ said Rose soothingly. ‘Your mummy’s coming to collect you today. You’re going home.’

  The dog did not respond to her words.

  Then Rose heard it. The sound of engines outside the building. They sounded like motorbikes. She heard a man shouting in the street, and Anna’s voice raised in reply.

  Rose left the Setter in its kennel, carefully sliding the bolt back on the door. She walked down the corridor to the reception area to check out the disturbance.

  Four motorbikes had pulled up in the street outside. They had powerful engines, the kind of bikes that motorcycle gangs drove in movies. The guys riding them wore black leathers, sporting beards and tattoos. One of them, a huge man with a red beard and bulging biceps, had got off his bike and was standing just outside the entrance door. He held a wooden stake, one end tapering to a sharp point. The other men left their bikes and came over to join him. They also carried weapons – knives and baseball bats. Some of the bats were studded with nails. A black Mercedes van joined the four bikers, pulling up at the curb side, disgorging two more men wearing leather jackets and combat trousers. Behind them came four more bikes.

  Anna locked the main door, sliding two security bolts across the top and bottom. ‘I don’t like this,’ she said. ‘I’m going to call the police.’ She picked up the phone and dialled 999.

  Rose watched through the window as the men gathered outside. She had no idea who they were, but they obviously weren’t pet owners.

  One of the men who had got out of the van seemed to be their leader. He wore wraparound black shades that matched his black beard, and his head was shaven clean. He turned his back to her, and Rose saw a white wolf etched on his black leather jacket. The man strode over to the locked door and rubbed the top of his head with one of his big hands. He kicked at the door, then stepped aside to let the huge guy with the red beard try to break it down with his shoulder.

  Rose heard Anna ask for the police, and start to explain what was happening. Behind her, the dogs were going crazy, barking and howling in their kennels.

  The door was reinforced with steel struts and redbeard had no luck breaking it down. Instead, two of the other men smashed through a window pane with their baseball bats, knocking away all the glass so they could climb through. One by one, they started to come through the opening, brandishing their weapons and advancing toward Anna.

  Rose backed away, but Anna held her ground. ‘Get out of here,’ she said, the phone still in her hand. ‘I’ve already called the police.’

  The bald man who Rose guessed was the leader walked casually up to Anna and struck her on the side of the head with a claw hammer. She didn’t even have time to cry out, she just went down.

  Rose screamed.

  Then the dogs all started barking at once.

  There was nowhere for Rose to run or hide. Her first thought was for the dogs. ‘Please don’t hurt them,’ she begged.

  The man with the hammer smiled, like nothing had happened, and came over to her. She couldn’t stop looking at the hammer. It dripped a trail of red along the ground as he walked.

  The man grabbed her chin with his huge hand and lifted her face up to his. ‘Hey, little girl,’ he said. ‘We’re here to collect some dogs. You help us out and we’ll cause no further trouble. Does that sound good?’

  Rose shook her head. ‘No. You can’t take them. I won’t let you.’ She risked a glance at Anna. The woman hadn’t moved, but she still seemed to be breathing. Her chest rose and fell as blood dribbled from the gash in her head.

  The man twisted Rose’s face back toward him. ‘We’re going to take them, with or without you. Now are you going to help us, or shall I give you some of the hammer?’ He raised the dripping weapon in his fist.

  ‘Which dogs have you come for?’ Rose asked.

  ‘All of them,’ said the man, leering at her. ‘So open the kennels and let them out.’

  ‘Please don’t hurt them,’ repeated Rose. She went along the row of kennels, opening each door in turn. The dogs wouldn’t come out. They stayed inside, barking fiercely, or retreating into the corner of their kennels, whining or growling.

  The men went into the kennels and started sorting the dogs. They grabbed the biggest and fiercest dogs and dragged them out to the van. They took the Irish Setter, a Bulldog, a Doberman Pinscher and a pair of German shepherds. They took a Rottweiler and a Greyhound and a couple of mongrels. Any dogs that were small, or timid, they killed.

  Rose screamed as they set about their work. She ran at them, beating her fists against them, trying to grab their weapons, but the men threw her aside.

  They killed the Terriers and the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. They killed a Toy Poodle and a Chihuahua and a family of Dachshunds. They smashed them with baseball bats, crowbars and sticks. They speared them with stakes.
They cut them with knives. After they’d finished, it was like a slaughterhouse.

  Rose retched. The enormous man with the red beard shoved her and she fell to the floor, her face in her hands.

  Finally the leader came back over to her and smiled again. The bloody hammer still swung at his side. He leaned in close to her before speaking. ‘Thanks for your help,’ he said, rubbing his thumb back and forth along the top of his bald head. Up close, his scalp was perfectly smooth, like a bowling ball, and when he rubbed it, it squeaked. ‘I guess you can go home now. If anyone asks who did this, tell them it was the Wolf Brothers.’ Rose watched him go, the big white wolf clearly visible on the back of his leather jacket. He laughed as he walked away, still rubbing the top of his head with his thumb.

  Over the sound of her sobs, Rose heard the men leaving the building. Engines roared back to life. The van started up and drove away, the muffled sound of dogs barking inside. Rose curled into a ball and waited. She was still sobbing hysterically when the first police car arrived.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  West Field Terrace, South London

  When Rose had eventually calmed down, the police took her home.

  Anna had already been taken to hospital. The paramedics in the ambulance said that her injuries weren’t as bad as they looked, and she stood a good chance of making a full recovery.

  The dogs would never recover, however.

  A police woman had made Rose a hot cup of tea, and then Rose had answered all their questions as best she could. The police couldn’t answer her question though. ‘Why?’

  The whole thing was senseless. And yet this had clearly been no random attack. Those men had moved with purpose. They had planned it, and executed their plans ruthlessly.