by Amy Cross
"I could have saved her," I mutter under my breath. "I could have made her like me."
"My biggest regret," he says, "is that I couldn't be with her when she died. I was traveling to the hospital. I'd had a phone call, telling me that the moment was coming, and I wanted to be with her. She'd gone through so much in her life, and she should have had someone there with her to hold her hand when she faced death. I arrived an hour too late."
I stare at the gravestone. "It wouldn't have helped," I say.
"Of course it would," he replies.
"No," I say. "Death is death. Whether you face it alone, or with people, it's still death."
"But she would have felt a little less abandoned," he says. "Surely you can see that? Instead, she died alone in that hospital bed, with no-one else in the room."
"What else could I have done?" I shout, turning to him. I've tried to contain my anger, but sometimes it's just not possible. People don't understand. They don't see the world for what it really is. "How can someone just throw away their life, and then expect other people to stand around and watch them die?"
The old man stares at me, and then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a necklace and an envelope. "You're Duncan, aren't you?" he says.
I take a deep breath. I don't like it when people know my name. People - humans - are not supposed to know my name.
"She left these for you," he says, handing them to me. "When I got to the hospital, the nurse told me that she'd left a note and a gift to give to you. Apparently she thought you might come and see her, but she was slipping in and out of consciousness in the final hours and she was worried she'd miss you. She said that if you didn't show up, we should try to get these to you anyway. I'm told her last words were about you."
I look at the envelope. In Anna's hand-writing, my name is written on the front, and I can feel that there's something inside. A letter. The necklace is one that she always wore; she told me it had been her mother's.
"I hope Anna brought as much joy into your life as she brought into ours," the old man says. "Goodbye." He turns and starts walking away.
"Wait!" I call out. For the first time in my life, I'm speechless. "I..." I turn and look back at the gravestone. "Was that really her full name? Annamaria?"
"Yes," he says. He pauses, and then he continues to walk away.
"Annamaria," I say quietly. Damn it, I didn't even know her real name. I traveled with her, I laughed with her, I made love to her, but I didn't know her full, real name. I just thought she was called Anna, but Annamaria is - if anything - even more beautiful. As a tear comes to my eyes, I look down at the envelope. I turn it over and open it, and sure enough I find that there's a letter inside. I see Anna's handwriting, and I immediately close the envelope again. I can't read this. Even though she wrote it to me, I can't read it. Not now, at least. I fold it up and put it in my pocket, along with the necklace.
"I'm sorry," I say to the grave, to Anna. Was she waiting for me, in her hospital bed? Did she think I'd change my mind and come to sit with her? Or did she know that I wouldn't? This is why I don't like to spend time with humans. You become emotionally attached to them, and then they go and do something stupid like dying unnecessarily. Anna thought I was scared of death, but I'm not. I'm angry at it, for coming and taking her away. If she'd just accepted my help, she could be alive right now. Instead, she surrendered to her fear of life. And one thing's for certain: I'll never ever let another human get so close to me again.
Jess
Tonight.
I'm woken by sirens. Sitting up, I see flashing lights getting closer and closer. I look down at my arms and see that I'm almost completely healed, as is Duncan next to me.
"Come on!" I shout, getting to my feet, but he's still unconscious. With the sirens getting closer and closer, I grab Duncan's arms and drag him away, down towards the banks of the river. We get there just in time to avoid being seen by the police and fire engines that screech to a halt at the entrance of the tunnel. They should be busy enough over there, without bothering to come down to the dark river's edge.
"Duncan!" I say firmly, trying to get him to wake up. "Can you hear me?"
He doesn't respond. Maybe I was right when I first thought he was dead. But then, how did he manage to walk out of the room while the fire was raging?
"Duncan!" I shout. In the background, there's the sound of more sirens.
Suddenly, Duncan opens his eyes and looks up at me. He smiles faintly, as if he's still a little too weak to really move properly. He's alive, but something feels wrong. I still can't sense his presence. It's almost as if I'm looking at a ghost.
"Are you okay?" I ask.
"You came," he says. His voice sounds a little off, as if something has changed.
"Yeah," I say. "I came." I lean a little closer, but I'm careful to still keep my distance. Something is definitely, definitely not right about this situation. "Where's Lumic?" I ask.
He stares at me, as if he doesn't know the answer.
"What happened?" I ask. "I... I sensed you were... gone, somehow."
"Gone?" he asks. "How so?"
"Gone," I reply. "It's like, suddenly I couldn't sense you being in the world any more."
He smiles. "Really?" he says. "That's odd."
I pause. There's still something very wrong with him. I can't explain it, but his voice sounds a little different, and the way he looks at me is more... studied and careful. I've never seen Duncan act like this before, and it's starting to seriously creep me out.
"How do I look?" he asks.
"How do you look?"
"Yes," he says, "how do I look?" He sits up and looks at his hands. "Do I look good?"
"You look... how you always look," I say. "Mostly."
"Mostly?" he asks. "What do you mean by that?" What's different?"
"I don't know," I say, which is true: I'm still trying to figure out what's wrong here.
"I think I look different," he says, as we both get to our feet.
I step back, instinctively trying to keep some distance between us.
"Are you scared of me?" he asks.
"No," I say. "I mean... I'm not... What happened down there? Did you find Lumic?"
He smiles. "It's complicated," he says. "I've got to admit, though, I thought you'd have worked it out a little faster. Can't you feel it in the air? Can't you sense it?"
"Sense what?" I ask.
"What's happened," he says, grinning. "Come on, are you really telling me you haven't worked it out yet?" He laughs. "Dear God, this body is a miracle. No wonder Duncan fought so hard to keep it." He pauses. "Don't think I've forgotten you, Jess," he says, fixing me with a dark stare. "I remember what you did to me in the Underworld. This is all your fault. If you hadn't destroyed my body, I wouldn't have had to go to such extreme lengths to get a new one. That said, it's a good fit, don't you think?"
"Duncan?" I ask.
"Duncan's gone," he replies. "Dead. I entered his body and flushed him out. There wasn't room for both of us in here, so he had to go." He starts searching through his pockets and pulls out a mobile phone. "What's this?" he asks.
"What do you mean, Duncan's gone?" I ask.
He throws the phone into the river and keeps going through his pockets, eventually pulling out a pack of chewing gum. He puts one in his mouth, then offers one to me. "No?" he asks, seeing that I'm not interesting. "Fine." He throws the pack into the river, and then he pulls a letter from his pocket. "Duncan," he reads from the front. "This looks old. I wonder..." He rips the envelope open and unfolds a handwritten letter. "Oh!" he says, smiling. "It's from Anna! Poor Anna! This must be the letter she wrote to him just before she died. He didn't even bother to read it. What a cruel, callous bastard he was." He screws the letter up and throws it into the water before pulling a necklace from his pocket. "More junk," he says, tossing it away.
"Where's Duncan?" I ask.
"Dead," he replies. "But this body is quite wonderful, isn't it?"
/> I stare at him, shocked. "Lumic," I say eventually.
"It's all your fault," he says. "You and your friend Darla destroyed my old body, so I needed a new one. Duncan's seems to fit rather well, and he was only wasting it." He smiles, and then he reaches out to grab me and pulls me close. "I like you," he says, leering into my eyes. "You've got spirit." He puts a hand on my ass and presses me against him, forcing me to feel how hard he is. "Do you know how long it's been since I fucked someone?"
"Fuck you," I say, trying to struggle free. Close by, the flames from the tunnel are still lighting up the night sky, and sirens are still blaring.
"I'll give you everything Duncan wouldn't," Lumic says, "and everything he couldn't. I'll show you the world, Jess. Forget about him. He's gone. Give yourself to me. I've got his body, I look just like him, but I'm far, far more interesting."
"I'll get him back," I say. "It's not easy to kill a werewolf."
"But I have his body," Lumic replies, "and I'm not letting it go." He pulls me even tighter against him, and I stare into his eyes as they reflect the nearby flames. "Like it or not," he snarls, "Duncan's gone. It's just me and you now."
Part Four
Darkness Falls
Prologue
"Hey!"
"Fuck off!"
"Hey! Sam, wait a minute!"
I push through the crowd. It's a cold Wednesday morning and London's full of asshole businessmen, asshole tourists and asshole homeless drug pushers. Olly belongs to the latter category; he's been trying to get me to fuck him for weeks, but I keep refusing. Just to piss him off, I've now slept with pretty much everyone he knows, but I refuse to let him anywhere near me.
"Sam!" he shouts, and I start running. Determined to avoid him, I run across Trafalgar Square, then down into the underpass and through Charing Cross Station, eventually coming out somewhere down near the Embankment area. Looking back, I can't see any sign of Olly, which means I've probably lost him. For now, anyway. I stop to catch my breath for a moment. In the distance, there's still a column of smoke rising from that fire that broke out south of the river last night. I watch the smoke for a moment, and then I turn and head back along towards Victoria.
"Gotcha!" Olly shouts, jumping out from an alley, grabbing me by the throat, and pulling me into the dark space between two large buildings. He clamps a hand over my mouth. "Don't scream! Don't scream! Don't scream!" he keeps saying as I struggle. "I'm not gonna hurt you!"
I manage to bite his hand, which causes him to yelp in pain. Taking the opportunity to get free, I twist away from him, but he grabs me and pulls me down onto the ground, banging my head against the pavement. Dazed for a moment, I struggle to kick out and try to force him away from me.
"What the fuck's wrong with you?" he shouts, venom in his voice. "Why the fuck do you treat me like some kind of fucking cunt?"
"Fuck off," I say. "If you fucking touch me -"
"You'll what?" he asks, kicking my leg hard. "What'll you do, angel? Hey? What exactly are you going to do that's going to stop me from doing what I want?"
I try to get to my feet, but he pushes me back down.
"Answer me!" he shouts.
"Fuck off!" I say, and he instantly kicks me in the face, sending me sprawling across the ground.
"Wrong answer," he says. "Take off your pants."
"No fucking way," I say, wiping blood from my lip. I can't even bring myself to look up at him, but I can imagine the look he's probably got on his face. He probably thinks he's finally got me where he wants me. Well, maybe that's true, but he's going to have to work for it. I'm gonna scream and scream and -
Suddenly he lets out a blood-curdling scream. I look up just in time to see his head being ripped from his body and thrown against the opposite wall with such venom that it actually splits like a watermelon. Spewing a fountain of blood from the torn neck, his body drops to the ground, bleeding all over my legs.
"What the fuck?" I say, scrabbling away as I realize there's someone standing over me. The sun's right behind them in the sky, so I can't make out the person's face. "Get the fuck away from me!" I shout.
"Relax," says the person. She steps closer and I finally see that it's Jess, the girl from last night. She looks deadly serious. "It's me," she says. "Something's happened, and I need your help."
"Help?" I ask, looking over at Olly's dead body. My heart is racing so fast, I'm worried it might burst. "Help with what?"
"Everything's gone to hell," she says. "Everything's gone completely wrong. But it's okay." She smiles. "I've got a plan."
Jess
There's something about Sam that reminds me of myself. She pretends to be street-smart, but she's not. She pretends she can take care of herself, but beneath the surface there seems to be a lot of fear in her soul. From what she says, it sounds like she half-expects she'll be dead soon. As we sit in a cafe at Charing Cross, she seems nervous, as if she doesn't know what to say to me. I guess she's so used to puffing herself and making herself seem strong, she has no idea what to do when she encounter someone like me who genuinely doesn't seem to fit into any kind of category. She seems to be simultaneously both fascinated by me, and scared of me; that's a killer combination, and I have to admit my ego is being boosted a little.
Sam probably has a certain way of dealing with tough guys, another way of dealing with idiots, another way of dealing with violent people... but I bet she never worked out how to deal with a werewolf who wants her help. No, this is totally new for her, and she's barely said a word since I saved her from that guy in the alley. She's probably convinced herself over time that she's pretty tough, and now she's facing something that brings all her fears out into the open.
"So what do you say?" I ask. "Is there any way you might be willing to help me?"
"Maybe," she says. "Let me get this straight. This Thomas Lumic guy killed your friend, but now you think there's a way to get your friend to come back to life, and you need me to help you?"
"Pretty much," I reply. "I mean, it doesn't have to be you specifically, it's just that I need someone reliable and, well, I don't know so many people."
"And this Lumic guy," she continues, "is using your friend's body?"
I nod. "He's taken him over." To be honest, I'm still haunted by the sight of Thomas Lumic staring at me through Duncan's eyes. He looked exactly like Duncan, but there was something different about the way he looked at me. I don't think I'll ever forget that moment. Fortunately, Lumic was too weak to put up much of a fight. He was still finding his way around Duncan's body, and he could barely walk. Maybe I should have killed him there and then, but I had this crazy idea that somehow I should preserve Duncan's body so that maybe I'd be able to help Duncan get it back. Now I realize, though, that Duncan's really gone; he's not swirling around as some kind of disembodied spirit. He's gone. Dead. But there's still a chance...
"This is pretty weird," Sam says. "You're lucky I don't think you're insane."
"Maybe I am," I say. It's already occurred to me that maybe I've imagined the whole thing, and that really there's no Duncan, no Lumic, no Darla or Karla, none of this. It's also occurred to me that I should have stayed in the library instead of being so keen to come back out into the real world. Still, I just have to get Duncan back and stop Lumic, and then I can finally go off and be alone.
Sam stares at me. "Is it dangerous?"
"No," I say. "Not at all."
"Oh," she says, looking a little disappointed.
"Well," I add, "maybe a little." Damn it, I'm tempting her; I'm using the same tricks Duncan used to use on me.
"Okay," she says, perking up. "And do I get to become a werewolf too?"
"No," I say. "Sorry. I wasn't born a werewolf, so I can't change other people." As I say the words, it occurs to me that maybe they're not true. Maybe Duncan just said that. Honestly, most of what I think I know about werewolves, I got from Duncan, and he has a history of bending the truth to fit his own needs. I wish I had time to go up to the Scottis
h Estate and get some more help from other werewolves, but I can tell that Lumic is going to be stronger soon, and I need to strike at him before it's too late. I don't know his overall plan, but I'm certain that once I get Duncan back I'll need to find a way to stop Lumic permanently.
"That sucks," Sam says, clearly disappointed. I remember my own excitement when I first became a werewolf. It felt so cool, and it was a while before I realized that some parts of it were a little more tricky. That time seems so long ago now, and it's hard to believe how far I've come.
"Yes," I reply. "It does. And the other thing is..." I pause for a moment. This is the important part; this is the past that I have to get Sam to understand at all costs. "At some point, I'm going to tell you to stop following me, and to walk away. When I do that, you have to do it. No arguments, no messing about, no pretending to go and then secretly following me." I sigh as I realize that this is what Duncan once said to me. "You have to accept what I say," I continue, "and walk away. For your safety. For my safety. For everyone's safety. Deal?"
She frowns. "Is the fate of the world hanging in the balance?"
"No," I say. " Well, I don't think so. I mean, Lumic isn't exactly a nice guy, but I don't know what his plans are."
"I'm in," she says, reaching across to shake my hand.
"Great," I say as we shake on the dead, but I've got this uneasy feeling in my gut. I guess the problem is, I'm starting to feel that I'm being more like Duncan, and Sam is being more like me. It's as if the roles have changed. Now Duncan is gone, I'm in charge, and I've taken Sam on as a friend who's going to help me out. Yesterday, Duncan told me I had to let him finish the battle with Lumic alone; today, I'm saying pretty much the same thing to Sam. It's weird, but now I'm starting to understand Duncan's point of view a little better.
I don't even need Sam with me, it's just that I feel like it's easier to carry out a plan when you have someone to talk to. I know that sounds insane, but it's as if I need to bounce ideas off her. It doesn't matter what she says, it's just important that she's there so I can use her to help myself think. The really important thing, though, is that I have to make sure I don't lead her into danger. Duncan led me over a line that, once crossed, couldn't be un-crossed. I can't do that same to Sam. I'll keep her with me while I need her, but I refuse to put her in danger. When the times comes, I'll cut her off cold and go on alone. Sighing, I realize that maybe this is exactly what Duncan thought about me when we first met.
