by Stephen Cole
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘We have to stay calm. Keep control. She wants to goad us into making mistakes.’
Tom nodded slowly. Kate didn’t sound very calm herself, but he knew she was right. ‘Where is my family?’ he demanded.
Marcie’s mocking laughter taunted him. ‘Why, here in New York, of course, while the manhunt for their murdering son continues.’
‘If you’ve hurt them—’
‘They are safe for now,’ Marcie told him, voice smooth as honey. ‘How long they remain that way depends on your co-operation, naturally.’
‘Co-operate? With you?’
Her eyes gleamed faint yellow. ‘It’s to be advised, Tom. You’ve seen what happens to those who don’t.’
The photo he’d dropped was caught in a wintry gust and flapped about his feet. He clenched his fists. ‘Why Ramone? Why kill him?’
‘I wanted him to call his friend, the girl, to summon you here. So much less suspicious than using that monosyllabic little freak.’ She tutted. ‘But Ramone simply wouldn’t betray you, whatever I did to him. Isn’t that touching?’
‘He swore he wouldn’t let us down,’ Kate said softly.
‘I knew you’d suspect this was a trap,’ Marcie went on, as two more dark figures advanced from out of the night behind her. ‘But then I realised it really didn’t matter. With the carrot of Jicaque dangled in front of your faces, like two dim donkeys you’d follow it anywhere.’
‘The carrot of Jicaque,’ echoed Tom, playing for time, trying to think through some way of escape. ‘That’s some voodoo charm thing, right?’
Marcie smiled without humour. ‘Yes, your friend Ramone acted brave, too. Joking till the last. You should’ve heard the way he laughed when I opened his throat …’
As she spoke, Tom glanced behind him. Polar was still hovering wraith-like beneath the streetlamp. And from out of the shadows on the far side of the bridge, two more people were advancing on them, hemming them in.
‘And to think,’ Marcie continued with mock sadness, ‘that his skinny hide had just been patched up by that lush over on East 123rd. What a waste of sutures.’
‘So you know about Woollard,’ Tom said quietly.
‘And his work,’ she added.
Kate frowned. ‘And you tolerate it?’
‘Woollard and Stein both have their part to play in our plans,’ said Marcie. Her eyes gleamed. ‘Like you two. I’m so glad I’ve found you both again.’
Tom was drawing a blank on any means of escape. He had to keep her talking, buy them some time. ‘How did you know we were even in contact with Ramone?’
Marcie assumed an innocent expression. ‘I didn’t.’
‘I told her,’ said one of the dark figures, stepping forwards into the better light. But Tom had already recognised the voice and the massive frame, now wielding a baseball bat with a half-dozen nails knocked through the fat end.
Swagger.
Kate took a sharp breath and Tom reached for her hand. She clutched it for a second, then let go. He watched her draw herself up to her full height and stare defiantly across at the towering man.
‘You owe me, girl,’ Swagger said. ‘And I’m gonna collect. Promise.’
‘I don’t get it, Swagger,’ Tom said, trying to distract him. ‘You said you wanted Ramone alive.’
Swagger answered, but his gaze still lingered greedily on Kate. ‘That was when he still had his gang, and could lead them the way we wanted. Now they’ve scattered. We don’t need him no more.’
‘And Polar was the consolation prize?’
‘Turned him myself, last night.’ Swagger grinned. ‘Thought I might need me a spy.’
‘Good military thinking,’ said Marcie. ‘Now I understand why Takapa has appointed you his personal aide.’
‘Yeah, until now she couldn’t believe that he’d hire such an ugly loser,’ Kate added helpfully.
‘That’s enough. Really, it’s so cold out here. So exposed.’ Marcie fixed her glacial eyes on Tom, then took a step towards him. Swagger and his heavy kept pace with her. ‘Takapa has private lodgings close by. Perhaps you’d care to accompany me there?’
‘Nice offer,’ Tom said, ‘but we’ve made plans.’ He checked behind him and saw the other thugs were advancing closer too. Soon he and Kate would be trapped.
‘Ah, Tom.’ Marcie pronounced his name with an odd relish. ‘If only you would give in to your lupine blood, overcome your ancient resister’s heritage. What a leader you would make.’
‘You wanted me dead before.’
‘My judgement was perhaps a little coloured … Takapa has studied the preliminary genetic samples we took from you in New Orleans. It seems there is much we can learn from you.’ Another step closer. ‘But why should we have to take your body’s secrets from you by force? If you were to work with us, help us – we would spare your life and your family too.’
‘Don’t listen to her,’ Kate snapped. ‘She’s trying to trick you.’
Tom’s mind was racing. ‘And Kate?’
‘She must do as she is told,’ said Marcie firmly. She took another step closer. ‘We must continue our bloodline, Tom.’
‘She’ll give me to Takapa, Tom.’ Kate’s voice was high and forced. ‘She’ll have me raped.’
‘I prefer the phrase “force-mated”,’ said Marcie, eyes shining. ‘To cement the union of our ideals, the forging of our beautiful lupine future.’
Unable to go forwards or back, Tom and Kate edged towards the side of the bridge, where the top of the scaffolding peeped over the rail, their one teasing hope of escape.
Marcie, Swagger and his heavies began to close in on them. Only Polar hung back, still clutching his camera.
‘She’s won, Kate,’ Tom said bitterly.
Marcie crowed in triumph. ‘Broken at last!’
Kate stared at him in disbelief. ‘Tom, no!’
Then, suddenly, for a split second the bridge was lit up with a blinding flash – Polar, to Tom’s left, had taken another picture.
‘You stupid freak!’ Swagger shouted, rubbing his eyes, distracted.
And in that moment, Tom and Kate acted.
Kate kicked her mother in the stomach. Marcie screeched and fell back.
At the same time, Tom wrested the club from Swagger’s hands. It was a gruesome weapon. But what choice did he have? He hefted its weight, his hands sweaty and arms tingling. A strange tinge of red blurred across his vision. Then he swung the club at Swagger.
Swagger took a hard blow to the head. He shouted out and crumpled to the ground. One of the heavies grabbed Tom around the neck, but Tom shoved the spiked end of the bat up into his attacker’s face. The thug cried out in pain, staggered and fell. Tom kicked him to make sure he stayed down. Kate screamed, but he ignored her, swung the bat again and knocked another thug’s legs from under him, felt the nails snag on clothing and flesh, and wrenched them free with vicious satisfaction.
‘Tom!’ Kate was screaming. It sounded like she was a hundred miles away.
The fourth of Swagger’s thugs was running away back down the bridge, Polar close behind him, ignoring Marcie’s demands that they stand their ground.
Marcie. She must be sprawling somewhere in the reddening shadows. Tom peered about for her, clutching the club tight in his sweating hands. Now he could make her pay, now he would—
‘Drop it!’ Kate had grabbed him by the shoulders, was shrieking in his face. She was covered in blood. ‘Tom, for God’s sake, please, drop it!’
Suddenly the weapon felt white hot in his hands. He let it clatter to the ground. ‘Are you …?’ He felt dizzy, sick in his stomach. Her cheek and neck were sticky and dark. ‘Are you OK, Kate? You’re bleeding …’
‘It’s not my blood, Tom,’ she wailed, ‘it’s theirs.’ She pointed to Swagger, clutching his head and gasping, and the two thugs who were writhing on the ground in agony.
‘I … I wanted to kill them.’ Tom stared at them in disbelief. ‘More than anything.’
‘You were never like this before,’ Kate hissed, hugging herself. ‘It’s that stuff, that damned stuff Stacy gave you, it must be!’
‘Jesus, Kate …’ Tom started to shake, tears welled up and streaked down his cheeks. ‘I couldn’t stop myself …’
‘Enough,’ snarled Marcie. Her eyes were yellow and bright, her features beginning to buckle and shift.
Swagger was pushing himself up on to his hands and knees. His eyes were shut, his forehead gashed open. Tom watched as thick, coarse hair started to sprout from the wound.
‘This way, Tom!’ Kate shouted as she jumped up on to the wide metal rail that ran along the side of the bridge. ‘Tom, come on. Come on. The ’wolves can’t climb.’
Kate swung herself down on to the top bar of the steelwork scaffolding ranged against the bridge’s side and began to clamber down to the planks below.
A low, rumbling noise behind him drew Tom’s dazed attention. He looked back over his shoulder.
The dark, nightmarish shape of Marcie in ’wolf form came howling out of the darkness towards him, her foaming, rabid jaws wide open and ready to devour. Swagger ran beside her, a hulking, hideous creature, his sandy coat matted and bloody.
Tom leaped on to the scaffolding after Kate.
But as he swung down to the next level, he landed badly and started to fall. He grabbed hold of a corner of the thick tarpaulin that shrouded the metal trelliswork. It tore under his weight but slowed his descent – before one of the scaffolding bars stopped it completely as he landed astride it. Pain tore through his body. He struggled to rise, to haul himself up on to one of the planks, but he was tangled in the tarpaulin.
A hot, itching feeling began to surge through his body; his head started to pound. The urge to change. But there was something different. The compulsion, usually nagging and insistent, was all-engulfing. They want you to give in to your wolf side? OK. Fine. Show them just what that means. That weird red tint was back in his vision. ‘Kate,’ he gasped. ‘Help me.’
‘Hold on, Tom,’ she called, somewhere close by.
A terrifying, keening howl echoed out around him.
‘No, Tom!’ Kate called desperately. ‘Please, no, not now! Not like this!’
It suddenly clicked in his head that the howling was his. The change was in full flow. His human flesh and bones were melting away as his ’wolf lunged out from the darkness to dominate. Tom could feel his consciousness slipping away as the lupine will took hold.
‘Your eyes,’ Kate was shouting, almost hysterical. ‘Jesus, Tom, your eyes are yellow! Yellow! This isn’t you, Tom, it isn’t you!’
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tom’s morphing lupine body tore free of Ramone’s clothes. His body looked more bestial, more powerful than Kate had ever seen it. That, together with his eerie yellow eyes, was enough to warn her well away.
This wasn’t Tom as she knew him. She could hear it, in the way he bellowed his rage up at Marcie and Swagger. The two ’wolves were leaning over the side of the bridge above them, snapping their jaws, their sinister silhouettes blotting out stars.
Kate had seen the rage that had taken Tom up on the bridge, the excessive violence he’d meted out. The glazed, unseeing look in his eyes had reminded her of Swagger and his generals back at the arena – and those unwilling warriors fighting for survival in the rink. Now that rage was back – only, in his ’wolf form, Tom could be unstoppable.
He leaped down from the scaffolding and landed half on land, half in the water. At once, two black shapes detached themselves from the darkness and attacked him. Jesus, there were more ’wolves down there, lying in wait – they’d been surrounded. Clearly Kate’s mom was taking no chances.
But just as clearly, Marcie hadn’t reckoned with the change in Tom’s personality. Kate saw her standing motionless now, watching the show as Tom fought off the ’wolves with a ruthless determination. His club-like paws swiped through flesh. His teeth tore at fur and muscle and bone.
It was a bloodbath.
Another ’wolf burst out of the blackness to throw itself at Tom, and he went down beneath its bulk. The two monsters rolled over and over till they hit the water with a colossal splash. Kate stared helplessly. There was nothing she could do to help him. She was frightened even to draw attention to herself, for fear of what he might do to her.
While her mom was distracted, she moved down through the planks and poles of the scaffolding as quietly as she could, then jumped down into a clump of long, springy grass. Yet another ’wolf raced by to join the fray, but too quickly to register her presence. She caught a glimpse of its bleeding leg and realised it must be the man Tom had attacked up above, out for revenge – and it sounded like others were on the way. She bit her lip as she tried to decide what to do. She hated the thought of running out on Tom – but what could she possibly do for him now?
She considered heading cross-country in the direction they’d come, but it was wide-open parkland – if she were spotted they’d bring her down in moments. There was woodland the other way. At least it would afford her cover while she waited for Tom – please God – to calm down and come find her.
With a shudder, she crept beneath the bridge. It was almost pitch black, but if she could just pick her way through to the other side …
A low growling ahead told her she’d made a terrible mistake.
Looming out from the shadows came a massive ’wolf. But the shape of it, the smell of it …
Her heart lurched as she realised she was facing her father.
His glowing eyes bored into her; his salivating jaws creaked open.
Hot tears prickled Kate’s eyes. ‘Please, Dad,’ she pleaded. ‘Please let me go.’
The ’wolf that was her father went on staring at her for what felt like for ever.
Then he turned and slunk away.
Kate stood like a statue in the darkness. Maybe some things were stronger than ’wolf bloodlust. ‘Thank you, Dad,’ she whispered.
She heard the lupine baying and snarling up ahead of her grow fainter. Her father was leading the other ’wolves away.
Suddenly she could hear something else: the droning note of a car engine, and the rattling of a chassis as it bumped and scraped over uneven ground. Kate’s heart leaped. But whipped up into such a frenzy, would the ’wolves retreat – or simply attack anyone who dared come near?
She got her answer a few seconds later in the form of an ululating, animal wail close by. It was her mother, crying out in impotent rage. The strange acoustics beneath the bridge took the sound and twisted it, made it echo and re-echo unbearably – but while it half-deafened Kate, the effect it had on the ’wolves was more profound. She saw their shadowy forms shift fleetly past the bridge, answering the keening call, heard heavy footfalls and scuffling all around. They were being summoned away, back into the cold shadows that harboured them.
Kate waited a few seconds more, then emerged from her hiding-place. The dark landscape seemed suspiciously still, the only sound the growling engine of the slowly-approaching vehicle. Then she gasped as something broke the surface of the shallow water.
It was Tom, naked and shivering cold, staring around in confusion.
He saw her, covered his modesty with both hands, and stumbled towards her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured, his voice slurred like he’d been drinking. ‘Kate, I’m so sorry.’ He collapsed to his knees on the chill wet grass. ‘Kate, what’s happening to me?’
He looked at her so helplessly that she ran to him and held him tight. His skin was cold as a corpse, and ridged with deep cuts and scrapes from his struggle. His shivering got more violent; Kate guessed he was in shock. ‘You’re back,’ she whispered soothingly in his ear. ‘It’s over, now.’
He hugged her closer like he wanted to believe it was true. ‘Is it?’ he murmured.
The car had stopped, and she heard its door slam shut. ‘Tom? Kate?’ She could’ve cheered, or cried or collapsed with relief.
Stacy Stein had come looking for them. ‘Down here!’ Kate called. ‘And do you have a blanket in your car?’
Stacy appeared over the rise of the bridge with a torch. Its powerful beam blinded Kate as it picked out her and Tom.
‘Oh my God!’ Stacy cried. ‘Are you guys OK?’
Tom looked up into the beam of light. Kate saw him force the tiniest of smiles through his chattering teeth.
‘Take me to your heater,’ he said.
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The warm air pumped out on full as Stacy drove them away from Gun Hill bridge in her battered Ford, back to civilisation. Tom was curled up on the back seat, utterly exhausted, sleeping now beneath a tartan blanket.
Kate sat beside Stacy in the front, checking the mirror every few seconds to be sure no one was following. ‘Thank you, Stacy,’ she murmured for the twentieth time. ‘If you hadn’t come when you did …’
Stacy waved away her gratitude. ‘Would they have killed you?’
Kate closed her eyes. ‘I don’t know what they would’ve done.’ She outlined what had happened on the bridge – including Tom’s reaction to the serum.
‘I can’t understand why it should have affected him that way,’ Stacy muttered. ‘The serum contains agents that excite certain parts of the brain – it gives a lupine all the rush of the hunt and the kill without the need to make it happen for real.’
‘Well, this was for real,’ Kate said with a shudder.
‘After delivering the rush, a downer kicks in, a pacifier,’ Stacy continued. She swore softly. ‘Why should it have such an effect on Tom? Something to do with his wereling chemistry?’
‘I saw Swagger and his generals take some of that serum back at his hang-out.’ Kate said. ‘Stacy, it didn’t pacify them either. If anything it seemed to make them more hostile.’
‘Maybe I need to perform more tests.’
Kate heard the weariness in Stacy’s voice, the reluctance to believe she could’ve got things so wrong – and what the ramifications of that could be. ‘Maybe,’ she agreed. ‘Stacy, how did you know the message we got was a fake?’
