‘That’s what you think,’ said Vijay stubbornly. All Sikhs believed in reincarnation.
‘Come on,’ said Drake. ‘Watch this.’ He pushed his way to the front of people waiting at the bar. ‘Three pints of beer, please, mate,’ he shouted at the barman.
‘Let’s see your ID, then,’ said the barman.
‘Leave it out, mate. It’s New Year’s Eve.’
‘Yeah,’ said the barman, ‘That’s why I don’t have time to argue. No ID, no beers.’
Drake scowled. ‘All right then, just some cokes instead.’
Chapter Sixty-Five
St John’s Road, Battersea, South West London, New Year’s Eve, 11:17pm, full moon
Warg Daddy had given careful thought to the best location for the Wolf Brother’s first hunt. They needed to be cautious. Armed police now patrolled the railway stations and key public spaces, and it would be folly even for a gang of werewolves to risk getting shot, especially the first time they changed. At the same time the public had become wary since the Ripper and Beast killings had begun. Parks and open spaces were deserted at night, with people staying clear between dusk and dawn.
All these factors elevated the risk.
The Pack would have to hunt close to populated areas, but away from the busiest hot spots. Warg Daddy had discussed it with Leanna that afternoon. They had decided to hunt as a single pack, and luck had given them its blessing by making the night of the full moon coincide with the New Year’s Eve celebrations. There would be no shortage of revellers on the streets of London tonight, and even a thousand armed police couldn’t possibly hope to protect a city of eight million on the busiest night of the year.
Warg Daddy had chosen home ground for this first sortie – Battersea, just south of the Thames, across river from the upmarket bars and restaurants of Chelsea. It was a part of London that hadn’t yet been redeveloped. An old inner-city borough, home to a large immigrant population, with a mix of older residential buildings and industrial sites, crisscrossed by nineteenth-century railways, but overlooked by clusters of new and half-built glass towers lining the riverbank.
The area drew a local crowd to its pubs, bars and nightclubs, many of them familiar haunts of the Wolf Brothers, and the nearby green spaces of parks and commons made a perfect getaway route. The streets were wide and open, and as long as they kept away from the major railway stations they ought to be safe.
And there would be people. People in abundance, like lambs waiting to be slaughtered.
The Wolf Brothers set out from their lair just after eleven o’clock. There was no point going earlier, as thick cloud lay heavy over the darkened city. It was forecast to clear in time for the turning of the year at midnight.
What wasn’t being predicted was the bloodbath that would follow.
Chapter Sixty-Six
St John’s Road, Battersea, South West London, New Year’s Eve, 11:45pm, full moon
Vijay heard the noise before the others. Despite the racket inside the pub, sudden shouts intruded from the street outside, even over the loud partying within. The shouting didn’t sound like people having fun. It sounded like violence. He grabbed hold of Drake’s sleeve. ‘What’s that noise?’
‘Nothing,’ said Drake. ‘It’s nearly midnight. Some people are starting the New Year early.’
‘It sounds like fighting.’
‘I can hear it too,’ said Rose.
Drake cocked his head to one side and listened harder. ‘Let’s go outside and see.’
‘No,’ said Vijay. ‘If there’s trouble we have to stay here and protect Aasha. It’s why we came.’ He started to push his way through the crowd toward her. Rose and Drake followed.
Close up, Vijay hardly recognized his sister. Aasha wore a low-cut black dress that revealed far more than he wanted to see. She and her three girlfriends had piled makeup onto their faces. Aasha’s eyes looked enormous, outlined in fierce black liner, her heavily enhanced lashes flicking dangerously up and down as her anger boiled over. ‘Oh my God,’ she said when she saw him. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Is that your kid brother?’ asked one of her friends. The other two giggled loudly.
Aasha was incandescent. ‘Did you follow us?’ she demanded. ‘You are such a creep. I am so not speaking to you ever again.’
‘There’s no time for an argument,’ said Vijay. ‘Something’s happening. That’s why we’re here. There’s some kind of trouble.’
‘What trouble?’ demanded Aasha, looking around.
People were starting to leave the pub now, heading outside to watch the fireworks and sing Auld Lang Syne to usher in the New Year at the stroke of midnight.
‘The only kind of trouble I see is the trouble you’re in,’ said Aasha. ‘Don’t think I’m going to let you off lightly for this. You, or your creep of a friend,’ she added, glaring at Drake.
But Drake had his attention elsewhere. ‘Shh,’ he said. ‘Listen.’
‘To what?’ demanded Aasha, but they could all hear it now – shouts and screams from outside, car alarms going off, and the tinkle of glass being broken. ‘What the hell’s that?’ she asked.
As if in response to her question, the window of the pub shattered into a thousand pieces as a rock smashed through it from the street. One of Aasha’s friends screamed. A young man wearing a baseball cap, his face covered by a ski mask apart from his eyes and mouth, jumped up and scrabbled through the empty window frame into the pub. In his right hand he gripped a baseball bat.
Aasha screamed.
Vijay moved instinctively in front of the others. The man with the mask turned to face him and advanced in his direction, picking his way between the empty chairs and tables of the pub. He paused to kick a table over, spilling drinks and glasses to the floor with a crash. He lashed out at another table, sweeping bottles away with his wooden bat. Beyond him, in the street outside, people rushed past in all directions.
The man came close to Vijay, slapping the thick end of the baseball bat against his open palm. The mask largely hid his face, but he was white and fair-haired, his hair shaved close to his skin. He wore baggy jeans, steel-toe boots and a green jacket.
Aasha and the girls pressed themselves against the back wall of the room.
The masked man stood with his feet apart, his hand gripping the wooden bat firmly. His eyes met Vijay’s. ‘Time to get this party started,’ he said.
Vijay watched the movement of the baseball bat with horror, cringing every time it slapped against the man’s palm. He had nothing to defend himself with. He looked around for something that he could use. All he could see were chairs and tables. He moved a chair between himself and the masked man. Laughing, the man kicked it away and onto its side. He stepped into the space where the chair had been, lifting the baseball bat to strike.
Drake stepped in front of him. ‘Hey,’ he said to the guy in the green jacket. ‘Leave them alone. They’re just girls.’
‘He’s not,’ said the youth, pointing the bat at Vijay and spitting at the floor next to him. ‘What you doing with them, anyway? They ain’t your kind. They don’t belong in this country.’
Drake grabbed an empty beer bottle from a nearby table and smashed its end against the back of a chair. He held the ragged glass of the makeshift weapon out in front of him, its teeth pointing at the masked youth. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You’re the one who don’t belong here. Now get out.’
The youth sneered at them and lifted the bat higher. He spat on the floor again, then turned and ran, jumping back through the broken window he had come through.
Vijay’s hands were shaking. ‘This is mad,’ he said. ‘We have to get away from here.’
‘We can’t go outside,’ said Aasha. ‘Not with people like that out there.’
‘But we can’t stop them coming in, either,’ said Vijay.
Aasha looked around the now-empty pub. ‘There must be another way out.’
Rose took hold of Vijay’s arm. ‘Follow me. I saw another exit nea
r the back.’ She set off quickly, the others following close behind.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
St John’s Road, Battersea, South West London, New Year’s Eve, 11:48pm, full moon
Dean was in the thick of it. There had been isolated incidents all evening, and he’d already made several arrests for various public order offences. His instructions were to crack down hard to prevent an escalation from petty disorder into full-blown riot. At first the strategy worked, but as midnight drew nearer, more and more youngsters flooded onto the streets, many of them clearly looking for trouble.
Dean recognized the type. These men had come prepared for violence, their faces hidden behind scarves or ski-masks, peaked caps pulled low, and carrying weapons too. They chanted racist and anti-immigrant slogans as they marched along, and quickly seized the opportunity to progress to physical violence.
With so many people on the streets, the situation rapidly descended into chaos. Dozens of people filled the street, rocking cars or climbing atop them, picking up missiles to hurl at the police and smashing the windows of cars and shops alike as they went.
A voice over a police loudspeaker tried to calm the crowds, but it was already too late for that.
On one side of the street, the brightly-lit windows of a department store had been broken. Inside, dummies dressed in the latest fashions looked on blankly as looters ran inside the store, searching for valuables that could easily be carried out. Alarms and sirens went unheeded, wailing uselessly over the shouts and cries of the people.
One hooded youth stood on top of a car just a short distance away, throwing a small barrage of stones in Dean’s direction. ‘Come and have a go!’ he jeered. Dean itched to oblige.
Among the rioters, ordinary people were caught up in the trouble, fleeing in panic, and adding to the overall confusion. A car had tried to wind its way through the melee, but had finally got stuck, coming to a halt as people pressed in from all sides. The driver and passengers cowered inside as a group of masked men surrounded them, rocking the car from side to side, laughing and jeering. Dean locked eyes briefly with the driver of the car. It wasn’t hard to read the look of terror on his face.
It was time to reclaim the streets.
Dean and his team fanned out across the street in a line, Liz next to him where he could keep a close watch on her. He and the other officers in his squad wore full riot gear, with stab vests, motorcycle-style helmets, circular shields, and batons, but he held no illusion that their protective gear made them invulnerable. He’d seen enough photographs of injuries sustained by riot police to dispel that myth. He looked around at his colleagues and wondered how many of them would end up in hospital by the night’s end.
Not Liz, though. Please, not Liz. She was as tough as any officer he’d known, but something was badly wrong with her tonight. She stood with hunched shoulders as if in pain. Bright lights seemed to dazzle her. And her eyes looked more yellow than ever, glowing like candles in the dark. He’d asked her again to go home, but she’d stubbornly refused.
He waited for their sergeant to give the command to advance. A rain of stones and other missiles fell down on them, clattering against their shields and helmets. They would need to act soon, or the situation would spiral out of control entirely. One hooded man ran toward them with a beer bottle and let it fly through the air. The bottle shattered against Dean’s shield.
It was enough.
The police began to pound their batons against their shields. They built up a rhythmic pulse that carried its own momentum, becoming faster and louder until it swept aside even the noise of the riot. It tapped into the same primeval bloodlust that drove the rioters themselves. The blood pounded in Dean’s head, pushing away all fear, and leaving him with a sense of focus.
‘Go!’ bellowed the sergeant behind him, and Dean and his fellow officers marched forward eagerly, shields held like a wall before them. The rioters fell back like a wave, and Dean began to run at them, his hand wrapped tightly around his baton.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Riverside Walk, Battersea, South West London, New Year’s Eve, 11:55pm, full moon
James stood with Samuel on the south bank of the River Thames. They were some distance from central London, but with his sharp eyesight he could make out the familiar form of the Houses of Parliament about a mile downriver, its floodlit facade picked out clearly against the darkened sky.
‘Look,’ said Samuel. He pointed at the tall observation wheel of the London Eye. Lasers began to flicker across its ovoid passenger capsules as the countdown to midnight began.
Enormous crowds had gathered along the banks of the Thames and on the many bridges that spanned it – Westminster Bridge, Waterloo Bridge, Vauxhall Bridge and others. Countless people stood waiting for midnight and the fireworks that would be released from barges stationed along the river.
But James and Samuel had not come for fireworks, or for the turn of the year. They had come to hunt. ‘When will the moon come out?’ demanded James.
‘Soon,’ said Samuel. ‘Very soon now.’
James raised his gaze high above the heads of the crowd, above the London Eye and the other landmarks, up toward the sky where clouds hid the moon. The weather forecasters had predicted the cloud cover would clear by midnight. Well, the hour had almost arrived, and the sky was still overcast, but it was thinning rapidly. It would not be long now.
James was glad they had stayed close to the river. Some kind of trouble was unfolding further south, judging from the number of police cars that had started to converge on the area, and James wanted to stay well away from trouble. ‘What do you think is happening?’ he asked Samuel.
Samuel shrugged. ‘Nothing for us to worry about.’
Another car sped past now, blue lights spinning as it crossed over the widely-arched span of Vauxhall Bridge and turned right toward Battersea Park. A fire engine followed, driving past at speed, its siren cutting through the sound of the crowd like a knife. The blaring noise gradually receded as the vehicle drove south, and was replaced by the voice of the people joining together to count down toward midnight.
‘… , three, two, one, zero!’ chanted the crowd.
Across the water the first chimes of Big Ben rang out. The quarter bells sounded faint at this distance, but James’ enhanced hearing picked out the famous Ding Dong tune that preceded the striking of the hour. The melody rang out at a stately pace, just as it had done every hour for more than a hundred and fifty years.
After it came to an end, the great bell began to slowly chime the arrival of the New Year. Simultaneously, the first fireworks rose into the sky, exploding in a flurry of sparks above the London skyline. All around the crowd cheered.
James looked on impatiently. The fireworks and laser display did nothing to satisfy him. He had not tasted human flesh for a full month. His whole body hungered for it. If the moon did not appear soon, he would not be able to restrain himself. He would be forced to kill, whether in wolf or human form.
Samuel seemed to sense his frustration. He wrapped his huge ebony hand around James’ pale fingers. ‘Relax, James. There’s no hurry. Just stay calm and enjoy the show.’
But James couldn’t concentrate on the fireworks. He looked instead at the crowds that lined the river bank. People by the hundred stood nearby. He could taste their flesh on his lips, smell their blood as his nostrils flared, hear the wild pumping of their hearts within their frail bodies.
He turned to the woman closest to him. She stood facing the river, looking into the distance, her bright eyes reflecting the flashes and bursts of the fireworks. She was young – perhaps just eighteen – and her rosy cheeks and smooth skin promised tender flesh beneath. She was wrapped from head to toe in a long, thick coat, but he could easily imagine the pale body beneath the heavy clothing, her arms and legs plump with meat and blood that he yearned to taste.
She was watching the fireworks so intently that she didn’t even notice his drooling tongue licking his upper
lip.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
St John’s Road, Battersea, South West London, New Year morning, full moon
Liz couldn’t have chosen a worse night to return to work, but that gave her all the more reason to see it through. She huddled behind her riot shield, facing the crowd, glad for once of her shortness, which made her less of a target for stones and other missiles. The aching in her limbs had returned as badly as before. Her light sensitivity was worsening too, and the bright artificial lights from shop windows almost dazzled her. Thick yellow mucus filled her eyes and she had to keep wiping it away with her thumb.
‘I am not a monster,’ she whispered to herself.
Dean had told her to go home twice now, but that had only made her more determined to stay. Her family needed her, yellow eye sickness or not. Dean, Mihai and her father – they were her family now. She would not let them down, not like her father had let her down.
Hunched over to protect herself from the blinding lights all round, she stood her ground waiting for the order to charge, and when it came, she marched forward with her fellow officers.
‘Keep close to me,’ said Dean.
The front line of rioters broke and scattered as the police charged, and Liz followed Dean to the stranded car, looking to rescue its trapped passengers as her first objective. There were four people inside including the driver – two men and two women – and they were clearly terrified. Dean reached the car ahead of her and banged on the windscreen. ‘Unlock the doors!’ he called to the driver, but the man kept the car firmly sealed.
The protestors had fallen back as the police charged, but out of the crowd stepped more youths, hurling stones, bottles and glasses at the police line.
‘Get out of the car!’ shouted Liz, banging on the car door, but the occupants seemed too scared to move. She and the other police raised their shields to block the hail of missiles from the rioters, but several hit home, smashing against the glass visors of helmets, striking unprotected limbs and shoulders.
Lycanthropic (Book 1): Wolf Blood Page 27
