It’s only when I’m alone, sitting in a side street in my beat-up old Ford, that I let the anger wash over me. I throw my bag and file onto the passenger seat and scream. I scream until my throat hurts, squeezing the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white, and then I lean back, panting.
Chapter Three
Lila
I turn the key and the car grumbles to life.
I have to get to school, and yet I sit here for a few minutes. It’s an indulgence I would never normally allow myself. After all, Casey has to be picked up no matter how I feel. I think about Isaac and the way he busied himself with raising me when Mom and Dad were too drunk to do much more than sit in their own filth and pour more glasses of whisky. I have to return the favor; I have to take care of Lila.
But still, I don’t pull out of the alleyway. I feel like a knife has been stabbed into my gut, twisted, and wrenched away, pulling a piece of me with it. I’ve been dreaming about this meeting for months. And no matter how much I tried to keep my hopes down, they flew despite me. I saw myself at the front of a class just off Main Street, not some out-of-the-way outhouse in the woods. My students smiled up at me and called me Miss and at the end of class I saw them out, talked with the parents about their progress, laughed and joked. Maybe I’d open a second studio once I paid off the loans . . .
Stop it, I tell myself. You’re not doing yourself any favors.
I push down the heartache and put the car in reverse.
But when I look into my rear-view mirror—an ornament of an angel Casey made in art class dangling from it—it’s not Main Street I see.
My throat seizes up as I register what I’m seeing. Dimly, in the back of my mind, I wonder if the meeting with Mr. Peppers has done more damage than I guessed. Maybe I’ve gone mad. But it stands there, at the end of the alleyway, arms tensed at its sides, legs muscular and covered in thick hair.
A werewolf? I think. I almost laugh. The idea is absurd.
But then I hear a scream from Main Street. I imagine it comes from one of the single mothers, shielding the pushchair with her body. More screams follow, a cacophony of them filling the air. That’s when I know what I’m seeing must be real.
It is around eight feet tall with a wolf’s head, its mouth huge, its bared teeth like daggers. Spit dribbles from its mouth onto the pavement. Its body is corded with muscle and patched with brown hair, clinging to it like pieces of fluff. I watch it for what feels like a long time, but really must only be a few seconds.
Then it tumbles onto its forepaws and charges at the car.
I hear myself scream in shock, but I act quickly, without thinking, slamming my palm down on the door lock. I press down on the pedal, smashing it into the floor. There’s a loud ggrrrrrrrgghff! as the engine chooses now, this moment, to gutter out on me. I turn the key. The engine coughs but doesn’t start. I turn it again.
“Come on,” I hiss. “Come on! Come on!”
The werewolf—if that’s what it really is, if life has turned so strange so quick—reaches the car. It slams its paws onto the trunk. The car lurches back with the force. I fly up and my head crashes into the ceiling. My ears ring. I jolt back down and fumble with the key, manage to turn it. The car coughs and coughs but that satisfying prrrrrr of a starting engine does not sound. It just keeps coughing.
No, no, no, I think, as the werewolf lets go of the car and walks on its hind legs around the side.
My eyes are glued to it. I feel frozen. The car won’t start and I’m so stunned by what I’m seeing that I won’t start, either.
The werewolf tries to wriggle between the car and the alleyway, but it can’t squeeze in its massive bulk. It lets out a long growl, its chest rumbling. Even with the window closed, I can smell it. An old, wet dog smell. It growls again and then swings its forearm down on the roof. I look up; the roof dents inward. Like a tree’s fallen on me, I think.
Then it bends down—and hops up onto the roof.
Something in me snaps and I spur into action.
I throw the car door open, ignoring the screeching sound it makes as the metal hits the concrete, slide out of the car, and run.
I sprint into the alleyway, legs working beneath me. Legs honed by countless hours spent in the dance studio. My breathing comes ragged, panicked. I don’t think about what’s behind me, though I can hear it. Growling, claws scraping the floor. I run to the end of the alleyway and turn without thinking, past overflowing trash cans and graffiti-covered walls.
I run and run and only when I’m at the end of the alleyway I realize that it’s a dead end, wedged between the baker’s and an electronics store.
I run to the wall, but it’s solid brick and twenty feet high. I slap it with my hand. “No!” I scream. “No, no, no!”
The werewolf walks slowly into the alleyway. I turn. Maybe I imagine it, but I think it’s smiling. Its eyes, beady and set deep in its wolf’s head, glimmer.
Slathering, it walks toward me.
Chapter Four
Tooth
As I get closer to the town, I sense a whisper in the Other.
A witch has cast a magical shield around Love’s Spring. It starts at the sign which reads Welcome to the town of love, Love’s Spring! and goes around the circumference of the town. I jog to the sign and extend my hand. The energy caresses my skin, a tingling force. I look up at a flock of birds. They fly into the shield and collapse a moment later, falling like stones to the earth. Nobody will be able to leave . . . except for me and the Woman of Starlight. I’ll use the Other to bring her through.
I close my eyes and step forward, feeling the energy buzz around me.
The road to Love’s Spring is one of those nowhere roads which are dotted all over America and lead to innumerable small towns. I jog down it.
I’m about a quarter-mile from the center, jogging past a fast food place, when I hear the laughter. It’s supernaturally loud. I send out my Other-hands. A warlock, I sense, crouched low behind a car. I look closer at the fast food place. Wrappers and trays and stools and corpses, too many to count, are strewn across the floor.
“You must be Tooth,” the man says, stepping from behind the car.
Warlocks are just humans who have been recruited. They don’t touch the Other, but they use the supernatural energy the Other seeps into the world and harness it into spells. This man is about fifty with a pot belly and a squashed face. His cheeks are rosy and full. Smoke curls from his fingers, a by-product of his spell-casting. People sprint away from the fast food place, into the town proper. The warlock grins after them.
He nods at the carnage. “This is too easy,” he says.
I sigh. I need to get to the Woman of Starlight. But warlocks are notoriously arrogant. They think a few spells and incantations make them gods.
“If you leave now I’ll let you go. I’ve got other things to worry about.”
He giggles, a mad-sounding giggle, and walks out directly in front of me.
“I am a warlock,” he says proudly. “A student of Beelzebub of the West, a master of fire and lightning. Who are you to let me do anything?”
“I’m a demi-god and I’ve lived for four-hundred thousand years,” I say.
“Ha! Those legends! Let’s see.”
I roll my head from shoulder to shoulder.
“Fine. Let’s see.”
The warlock lets out a roar and throws his hands at me. Fire-shrouded lightning bolts zigzag through the air. I watch them in quarter-speed time, my senses noting each individual movement. When it’s almost on me, I weave left. The bolts crash into the road, tarmac kicking into the air in big chunks.
I charge at him, closing the distance between us in half a second. Grabbing him by the neck, I lift him off the ground, digging my fingers into the fleshy folds of his jowls, and hold him above my head.
“No,” he squeals, his body wriggling like a desperate finger. “No, no, please. No!”
“Horde,” I say. “Why do you always overreach?”
&nb
sp; “I didn’t mean to. I heard the legends and I . . . You truly are Tooth, aren’t you? Yes, yes, I see that now!”
“You killed those people,” I say, nodding to the fast food place. “Why?”
“Because . . .” He trails off, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Because . . .”
I give him a shake. “Tell the truth,” I say.
“Because I enjoyed it!”
“That’s what I thought.”
I toss him straight up into the air. He flies head over toe, flipping around, and crashes into the roof of a pick-up truck. The truck crumples like a potato chip packet and the man roars out in pain. And then goes silent.
I turn back to the road.
I’ve walked no farther than half a dozen steps when a woman with dyed pink hair runs at me from the fast food place. She’s thin and wears a tank top, her arms covered in skull-and-crossbones tattoos. A witch.
“My prince!” she wails, looking at the mess of the pick-up truck. She turns to me. “You killed my prince!” she cries.
A growl sounds from deep in my throat. I think of the all the wars I’ve fought, all the blood I’ve shed. I stand with my arms at my sides, staring straight at her. My teeth itch like they want to bite something.
“Don’t,” I say.
She points at me.
“Don’t,” I repeat.
“But you . . . you . . .”
“Do you know who I am? I think you should know who I am before you start something you can’t finish.”
“Wait . . .” She tilts her head, squinting at me, squinting at my teeth. “You’re him!” She throws herself to her knees. “You’re him, aren’t you? The Blooded One! The God Who Walks!”
“Tooth,” I say. “My name is Tooth. Now do yourself a favor and stand up and leave this town and never come back.”
I watch as she climbs unsteadily to her feet, looks once at her dead lover, and sprints away from the town. She stops momentarily at the invisible shield, mutters something, and steps through it.
I don’t have time to savor this small victory. The Other twinges. I feel it; the Woman of Starlight is in trouble.
Chapter Five
Lila
The beast seems to be enjoying this.
It takes long, slow steps, grinning its wolf’s grin. I press my back against the wall. Tears don’t prick my eyes, but I’m shaking all over. Casey, I think, mind doing backflips. Casey! I can’t die and leave her behind! She’s already lost her mom and dad. She can’t lose me, too!
I look desperately around the alleyway. I scan the walls. Nothing but graffiti. The trashcans. I’m guessing nobody comes around here very often. Maybe the odd employee to dump the trash. One of the trash cans is clearly for the electronics store. Bits of televisions and CD players and mobile phones break through one of the bags and drop onto the concrete. I look closer. There, some kind of metal bracket for a TV wall mount.
I turn back to the werewolf. A few yards from me. It paces. I’m sure it’s having a fantastic time. Its grin couldn’t be wider and when it slices its clawed paws through the air, it looks like a man punching with joy.
The bracket.
Heartbeat like a series of explosions in my chest, I lurch to the trash and pick up the bracket. One of the edges is jagged and sharp from where it’s been partially snapped, turning it into a serviceable weapon.
I push away fear and swing the bracket in a wide arc. The werewolf stops, watching me with a sideways glance.
“Back!” I snap, hoping my voice doesn’t sound as scared as I feel. I swing again. “Get back! Shoo! Away! Back!”
It flashes its teeth and coughs repeatedly. No, not coughs, laughs. Just like Mr. Peppers, I think. How has life got so mad so quick? It cackles and throws its head back and howls up at the autumn sky. “Owwwooooooo! Owwwoooooo! Owwwoooooo!”
I see two things. One is the wolf, mocking me. The other is Casey. I see her small, vulnerable face. I remember the confusion in her eyes when I picked her up from school one day and told her what had happened. I remember the feeling of her tear-stained cheeks against my face, the damp warmth of it. I remember holding her hands as they trembled so violently it was like they were trying to detach from her arms. I remember the first time she laughed after Isaac’s death. I remember pushing her on the swing and the little boy skipping over and giving her a daisy. I remember how she put the daisy in her hair and turned to me proudly and said: “That’s my boyfriend.”
Memories of Casey harden me. I have a responsibility. I have to get out of here. The town is screaming all around me. It sounds like a scene from a riot, the shouting and the yells of violence and the trampling and the rushing, all of it filtering into this dark dingy alleyway.
I watch as the werewolf throws its head back and howls. I watch as it reveals the tender skin of its neck.
I don’t think. I don’t have time to think.
I jump forward and with all my strength, I stab the jagged edge of the TV bracket into its neck.
Its howl turns into a guttering cough and it stumbles backward. Blood sprays down its patchy coat. I watch long enough to see it crash into the wall. It paws at the bracket. It’s hurt, but it’s not dead.
Still, I’ve bought myself some time.
I run into the gap its stumbling form has opened, sprinting back the way I came. My ponytail has come loose and my hair swings all around me, batting me in the face, catching in my teeth. I reach the car and squeeze around it onto Main Street.
Chaos.
I never dreamed that Love’s Spring, the town which is tinier than the tiniest pinprick on the map of California and doesn’t even appear on some US maps, could change so drastically. Cars are overturned, their occupants bleeding to death or already dead in the seats. Windows are smashed. Chairs lie scattered across the street. People run in all directions, screeching with abandon. The smell of gunpowder stains the air like acidic vapor.
And the things . . . there are so many of them I can’t take it all in. More animal creatures, tigers, cheetahs, bears, wolves, dogs, hybrids with jumbled bits and pieces like a zoologist’s doodle. Men and women throwing fire and ice and lightning and waves of green and orange and yellow energy. Half-dead men and women, people I know—I teach many of their children—rising after they’re killed, limbs hanging loose, and walking zombie-like to the nearest person.
I observe all of this in half a second and then one of the zombies starts walking toward me. It’s Mrs. Gateway, I realize, and if I wasn’t stunned into numbness, I’d scream at the sight of her. She was my English teacher at school. A kind, bubbly woman. She’s not kind or bubbly anymore. Half her face is missing. I glance around, searching for somewhere, anywhere to go. But the street is full.
One of the hybrids comes at me from the other side and a half-man, half-bear comes at me from the front, backing me into the alleyway.
But the werewolf!
It doesn’t matter. They keep coming and I have no choice but to turn one-eighty and let the mouth of the alleyway swallow me.
I hear Mrs. Gateway groaning behind me, the hybrid making a strange coughing noise and the bear growling. I round the corner. The werewolf steps out in front of me. Its throat is stained crimson but the bleeding has stopped.
I turn full circle, surrounded on all sides.
Casey, I think. Casey, I’m so sorry.
Chapter Six
Tooth
I don’t get into the fray on Main Street.
There’s no use. When the Horde descends, they descend like raiders who have been too long at home and are itching for brutality.
I am close to the Woman of Starlight now. I go the back way, around the side of an electronics store. There are a few zombies down the street, staggering to their feet, killed moments before. I ignore them and jump up, gripping the edge of the store’s door. I pull myself up and reach again, gripping a window, and again, my fingers curling around the eaves. I haul myself onto the roof and jog across.
When I look down,
I feel the first real hint of fear I’ve felt for decades. But mixed with the fear is elation. It is a confusing mixture for a man deadened to much of what this side of the Other has to offer. Elation—she is real! She is real and she is there! She is like I dreamed her, fire-haired, forest-eyed, tall and strong. Even from here, I can see the freckles on her face. The energy around her is immense. I understand now why the all-father said the Horde would be able to sense it. It burns from her like an oven which has blazed since the dawn of time.
But then fear overrides the elation. She may be real, but she is in danger. A warg-shifter bear, a warlock’s hybrid creation, a zombie and a werewolf surround her. She stands almost straight-backed. She doesn’t scream or cry. She just stands there. Like she knows she’s lost but she doesn’t want to give them the satisfaction of twisting agony from her. I respect that. But respect or not, I’m not going to let them touch her.
I drop into the alleyway and whistle sharply.
All of them turn. The bear paws the earth and the werewolf’s grin slips from its face. The zombie, sensing the uncertainty, walks in a circle like a dog chasing its tail. Only the hybrid—the agent of a warlock causing mayhem someplace else—doesn’t hesitate.
It bows its head and rushes me. I bring my hands up in a boxer’s stance, judge its speed, wait—and then bring my fist down with a crack on top of its head. Its skull caves.
I step over its dead body and face the others.
“If you touch her,” I say, “I will kill you.”
Chapter Seven
Lila
The man is tall and muscular, black-haired and black-eyed. He wears a shirt and jeans which hug his body closely, defining his muscles. But I only glance at these details. His teeth are what predominate. They are like a vampire’s, long and pointy, and reach almost down to his lower lip. When he talks, they shift subtly.
Tooth: An Alpha Like No Other (A Song of Starlight Book 1) Page 2
