by Stephen Cole
‘Then we’d better be fast!’ Tom yelled at her. ‘We don’t know who’s trapped in there!’
Cursing under her breath, Jasmine stamped on the gas and they accelerated down the street.
Tom berated himself for not agreeing to come straight here. He’d thought it safest if they all confronted Woollard together, and assumed that Stacy and Kate would be waiting at Ramone’s. But they’d already taken off. Kate had left a brief note that confirmed the worst:
g
Tom – if you’re not OK I’ll kill you. ;-) Gone to see Woollard
K
g
Just like her: she’d leave him a scribbled emoticon, but never so much as an x.
Jasmine found him some painkillers, and then they’d all headed over to Woollard’s.
And found an inferno.
Jasmine hit the brakes and the wagon skidded to a halt on the wet tarmac.
Tom jumped out, looked at her expectantly.
‘I’ll stay here,’ she announced, ‘and you’d better be quick. When the cops come calling we’re out of here.’ Her pretty face softened. ‘Don’t take any risks you don’t have to,’ she added quietly. ‘’K?’
‘OK,’ Tom told her solemnly. ‘Rico, you’d better stay here too.’
Rico said something noisy and probably very offensive in Spanish, and leaped from the wagon to join him.
A few night-owl neighbours across the street were staring in wonder from windows, but Tom didn’t care who saw him now. ‘Kate!’ he yelled. ‘Kate, are you in there!’
‘Back way,’ said Rico, racing toward the vacant lot adjacent to the house. ‘Fire might not have reached there yet.’
Tom chased after him.
Rico was right. The flames hadn’t yet reached this part of the building. The wood of the back door was slimy with mould. Tom thought of all Woollard’s locks and bolts and mystical protections to keep the dark things out – and yet the shell of his apartment was so old and worn that it wouldn’t keep out a determined field mouse.
With a couple of well-placed kicks, Tom booted open the door. Stinking black smoke choked out in his face. He recoiled, coughing and spluttering.
‘Better leave this to me, Tom,’ said Rico confidently. ‘If you turn howler in there, you gonna burn your fur.’
And with that, Rico rushed inside.
‘Come back!’ Tom yelled, his eyes streaming. ‘Rico!’
There was no reply. Tom dashed in after him, and found himself in Woollard’s kitchen. He yanked down the yellow curtains from the windows and soaked them in the sink. Then, crouching down low where the smoke was less dense, he draped the wet curtains over his head and pressed on through to the passageway.
Woollard’s body lay prone outside the living room. Tom felt his neck for a pulse.
So much for answers. He was dead.
Tom peered into the lounge. The fire was fiercest here. The arcane texts that papered the walls, the charms, the feeble garlic flowers, all were blackening to a charred mass. Glass cracked as a heavy frame tumbled from the wall to land at Tom’s feet. He saw it held Woollard’s doctorate, hard-won in a brighter time.
‘Tom!’
His heart leaped; that was Stacy’s voice, from across the passageway. Tom crawled from the room, the damp fabric heavy about his head and injured shoulder. He placed the doctorate beside Woollard’s corpse as he passed by.
He squinted into the smoky room. Suddenly Stacy came into view, coughing, eyes streaming. Rico appeared just behind her.
‘I woke her up!’ he wheezed in triumph.
‘Where’s Kate?’ Tom asked Stacy, handing her the other soaked curtain.
She took it and wrapped it around herself and Rico. ‘Swagger took her.’
Tom stared at Stacy blankly, the flames and smoke suddenly nothing to him.
‘We have to get out!’ she shouted, grabbing Tom’s arm.
Tom gasped at the wrench on his injured shoulder. The pain was enough to snap him out of his despair, sparking and strengthening his resolve. He swiftly led the way back outside, where they all three gulped down icy sharp breaths of the damp night air.
‘Got your inhaler, Rico?’ Tom asked.
The boy coughed thickly. ‘Don’t work,’ he muttered.
‘Take the damn inhaler,’ Stacy barked. ‘You think we want more trouble than we’ve got already?’
A distant wailing carried to them over the gloating roar of the flames as they consumed more and more of the apartment. Sirens.
‘We may not want it, but here it comes,’ said Tom huskily. ‘Let’s get out of here.’ He led the charge back around to the front of the building to where Jasmine waited.
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The streets in the neighbourhood were crawling by now with fire trucks, cop cars and ambulances, blue lights blinding the night, sirens screaming past.
‘Close,’ Jasmine remarked when they’d stopped at the next lights. She was half-smiling at Tom, her dark eyes suggesting approval.
‘Too close,’ he agreed. ‘But we were too late to help Kate.’ He felt sick inside, and utterly helpless.
‘You shoulda seen it in there, Jas,’ Rico chirped from the back seat.
‘Rico was fantastic,’ Stacy said with feeling. ‘Dragged me off the couch and on to the floor where there was less smoke. Helped bring me round.’
Rico shrugged. ‘Wasn’t nothing.’
‘OK, heroes!’ Jasmine called. ‘Where the hell am I driving?’
‘To the ice arena, I guess,’ Tom said grimly. ‘That’s where Swagger and company will be. And Kate.’
‘I’d better tell you what happened at Woollard’s,’ said Stacy.
There was silence in the wagon as Stacy told her chilling story.
Tom’s heart sank like a rock as he heard how Kate had been dragged away, kicking and screaming. ‘So Takapa’s back in New York, and Marcie’s come to join him. Whatever his plans are, they must be close to coming together.’
‘Midnight, Friday,’ Jasmine recalled. ‘Swagger said he wanted us all to check his dumb skating rink at midnight on Friday to swear allegiance or whatever.’
‘Something must be going down,’ Stacy agreed, checking her watch. ‘And we’re four hours into Friday already.’
‘Screw Takapa.’ Rico pouted. ‘What about Kate?’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ muttered Tom.
‘Reckon Swagger’s …?’ Jasmine sounded kind of awkward for once. ‘Well – d’you think he’ll have killed her?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Tom, praying he was right. ‘Otherwise, why not kill her at Woollard’s? And both Marcie and Takapa want her pretty bad.’
‘This Takapa’s a son of a bitch,’ Stacy said. ‘From what Kate has seen, it looks like he’s breeding his own militia.’
‘Nice thought.’ Tom shook his head. ‘Just imagine. Kids off the street, all the flotsam and jetsam of a city … trained like soldiers to fight and to kill, but with the strength, the speed and the senses of a werewolf.’
‘I don’t want to imagine that,’ muttered Jasmine with a shiver.
‘Better still, they’re all hooked on a drug so addictive they’ll follow any command to get it,’ sighed Stacy. ‘All thanks to me: dumbest bitch on the East Coast.’
‘I met dumber,’ Rico piped up matter-of-factly.
‘Oh, God.’ Stacy clapped both hands to her face. ‘I just remembered. I was so out of it, I can’t be sure, but …’
Tom frowned. ‘What?’
‘Swagger. I heard him say, Tom, after he’d hit me, while I was whacked out on the couch …’ She looked at him, and bit her lip. ‘I’m sure I heard him say Marcie Folan was going after your parents – later tonight.’
Tom felt his world fall away. He tried to speak but the words withered up at the back of his throat. ‘That evil bitch,’ he managed to croak. ‘She’s taken so much …’
‘Well, I’ve taken a whole bellyful of her,’ said Jasmine fiercely, taking a corner. ‘She ain’t hurting nob
ody else.’
‘We know where his mom and dad are,’ chirped Rico. ‘It was on the cop radio. First Western Hotel, over on Madison, room 3003. We could go get them. Pick them up.’
‘And do what?’ Tom said bitterly. ‘Tell them their son’s a werewolf? And that the woman they think is another poor grieving parent is actually planning to tear them apart?’ His voice was rising higher. ‘You think they’ll buy all that? Sure! “Oh, sorry, son, we thought you were just a murderer, not the freakin’ ’wolfman!”’
Jasmine placed her hand on his arm. ‘OK. Enough, Tom. Come on, cool it.’
Tom massaged his temples. He felt exhausted, and his shoulder was still throbbing, setting his whole spine on edge. ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered.
‘’S’all right, Tom,’ Rico told him. ‘I know you ain’t mad at me.’
‘We need a proper plan,’ said Stacy. ‘We need to think about this.’ She shut her eyes, and started muttering to herself.
Rico watched her, intrigued.
‘That brainy stuff might work, sure,’ said Jasmine quietly, seriously, as she pulled up at the next set of lights. ‘But, seems to me you gotta fight fire with fire.’ She shot Tom a dark look. ‘Know what I’m saying?’ She held open her jacket. Protruding from her jeans pocket, glistening black, was the handle of Ramone’s gun. She must’ve grabbed it from the hangout.
Tom stared at it, framed against the creamy brown skin of Jasmine’s midriff.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ Stacy announced.
Jasmine let her jacket hang back down, hiding both the gun and her bare flesh from sight. ‘So do I,’ she muttered, her eyes wide and maybe just a little scared, holding Tom’s.
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The ice arena looked no more appealing by starlight than in the cold, grey light of yesterday’s dawn. To Kate, its squat, rounded shape gave it the silhouette of some giant black beetle hunched over the land.
Swagger was half-dragging, half-carrying her through the rubble-strewn parking lot, away from the main entrance. ‘We’re taking the back way,’ he informed Polar, who followed on mutely behind. ‘Hell, will you dump that camera, man? You look like a friggin’ retard.’
Polar reluctantly lowered the camera.
‘You could pick up some tips from Polar, Swag. You’d look a whole lot cuter if we couldn’t see your face,’ Kate goaded him. ‘And just why are we skulking into your sleaze palace the back way?’
‘I don’t want no one seeing you come in,’ he told her. ‘’Cause ain’t no one seeing you come out again.’ He passed Polar a key to open the heavy padlock on a set of mouldering fire doors. Then Swagger yanked them open and forced Kate inside.
They were in the arena’s cavernous locker rooms. The stench was worse than the last time she was here; sweat and urine and stuff she’d rather not dwell on. She soon learned the reason why.
The place had been converted into a kind of holding area. All around, people were gathered in groups, slumped on the floor or against cracked tile walls. Their eyes were glazed, their bodies stiff and lifeless. They were being held in crude pens fashioned from welded fenders, girders, bits of scrap iron – presumably anything Swagger’s thugs could lay their hands on. A bucket made do for a toilet. The damp concrete floor was their table, littered with assorted fast food debris: empty buckets of chicken, burger wrappers, soda cans.
It was like a detention camp for all the poor souls Swagger and his kind had snatched from the streets.
Polar stood beside Kate, looking down at his scruffy sneakers as if trying to blank out the rest of his surroundings.
‘Why are you keeping these people here like this, Swagger?’ she demanded.
‘They won’t be here long. Arrived last night. Winners of the national heats, shipped in from all over the country.’ He tightened his vice-like grip on the back of her neck. ‘My gladiators. Ready for the big rumble. Midnight tonight.’
Kate shivered. ‘That’s when you wanted Ramone’s gang to come here.’
‘That was the plan.’ He sniggered, and clapped Polar on the back. ‘I like my troops to be well-fed before battle.’
‘So anyone who won’t take the bite becomes the pre-match snack, is that it?’ She glared at Polar beside her. ‘And I guess you decided you’d rather chow down yourself than be part of the meal.’ Then she paused, as the full significance of Swagger’s words sank in. ‘Troops? Gladiators?’
Swagger leaned in close, nuzzled his big greasy nose in her ear. ‘They’re here to prove themselves, see? Only the strongest, the fiercest, have a place in Takapa’s private army. He’s been recruiting in a dozen states, and the big face-off is right here – with me presiding. This is where we build the real crack force, right here, in New York …’
‘Crack force?’ Kate snorted. ‘Crackheads more like.’
Swagger was oblivious to her scorn. He spun her around to face him. ‘They’ll fight for me, die for me.’
‘Not for you,’ Kate argued. ‘For the drug you’ve tricked Stacy into creating. Once they’re hooked on that filth they’ll do anything for a fix.’
‘That’s right. And only the strongest will live.’ His eyes shone as he stared into the distance, and Kate was glad she couldn’t see what he was seeing. ‘We gotta make fighters out of this scum, gotta make them the best. So we gotta keep them fighting, see? Make them faster, sharper, meaner. Strip out the weak till we got us an unbeatable army, ready and waiting …’
Without warning he snatched the camera from Polar’s hands. The carry strap snapped and Polar gave a weird, high-pitched squeal, like he’d lost a piece of himself. Swagger opened a locker, tossed the camera inside and turned the little key in the lock. Then he threw the key into one of the pens.
‘You’re watching her, now,’ Swagger told him. ‘With your own eyes, not through a lens. Retard.’
Polar slumped his shoulders, and slowly nodded.
Some of the people in this makeshift prison were roused by the clang of the locker door slamming.
‘You bringing us the stuff?’ a man called, and one by one the others began to rise and take up the call. Some even got to their feet, hanging from the rusty bars of their cells, first angry and threatening, but soon pleading and pathetic. All clamouring wildly and violently for their fix.
‘They can shout all they want.’ Swagger shoved Kate out of the locker room into a grimy reception area. ‘But they’ll just have to wait. When they wait, the kick’s even better … and the fighting’s so much sweeter.’
Kate massaged the back of her neck, turned to face him. ‘You’re sick.’
Swagger dropped his voice to a stage whisper. ‘You might want to keep real quiet, now.’ He turned to Polar. ‘Watch her.’ Then he disappeared around a corner.
Kate heard him knock on a door.
‘Well?’ came an imperious voice, a hint of something European in the accent. Kate recognised it at once, and it chilled her. Takapa.
She heard Swagger open the door and go inside. This was it then. Takapa would come out of his office now and find her. She glanced at Polar. He was looking back towards the locker room, thinking about his camera, no doubt. If she could catch him off guard …
She took a slow step towards him but he caught the movement, whirled back around, and slowly shook his head.
‘Stein and Woollard are dead, sir,’ she heard Swagger announce. ‘I burned ’em, along with any remaining evidence.’
Now Kate heard the rustling of papers.
‘Ah, my documents,’ purred Takapa. ‘Invaluable research. The fruits of which shall quite transform this feckless human society.’ He paused. ‘With Stein dead, you can liberate the remaining serum from her offices at the hospital. Our fighters must be well-fed.’
‘Already arranged, sir,’ Swagger reported. ‘Kes is dealing with that now. Serum supplies to be dished up at eighteen hundred hours.’
Takapa sounded amused. ‘Meagre rations, I trust. Then we’ll leave them to simmer for six hours. Their aggression levels will rem
ain high and their cravings will be at their most extreme. Excellent, General Swagger.’ His voice suddenly hardened. ‘Now, have you found the wereling and the Folan girl?’
Kate shut her eyes, held her breath.
‘Not yet,’ said Swagger. ‘But I got people working on it. I’m expecting news soon.’
A reprieve? Why was Swagger risking his own life with a lie that size? Kate bit her lip, more scared now than ever. There could only be one reason.
Swagger had his own plans for her.
‘Marcie Folan is resting now in my private suite,’ Takapa said. ‘If the wereling is not found, she intends to inflict damages on his parents at dawn to draw him back out into the open.’
‘I know that. She told me herself, coming back from Gun Hill.’
‘It would be … good public relations if we could spare her the risk and the bother and find him first.’
Kate looked imploringly at Polar, his face a dark shadow beneath his hood. ‘Let me go,’ she mouthed. ‘Let me warn them!’
He didn’t move, stood still as a statue.
‘Make no mistake, we still want that wereling, Swagger. He has much to contribute to our plans.’ Takapa paused. ‘And I want the girl. Her own contribution shall be sweet indeed.’
‘Understood, sir. If she’s still in the city, we’ll find her.’
Kate heard the sharp tap of Swagger’s heels clicking together, then his heavy footsteps before the door closed behind him.
A second later he was back, his gargoyle grin large on his heavy face. ‘Why, there you are now!’ he whispered. ‘Ain’t that a surprise.’
Kate took a shuddering breath. ‘What are you going to do with me?’
He just smiled, and took another step closer.
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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘Coast’s clear,’ whispered Jasmine.
Tom followed her stealthily across the hotel lobby. It was five-thirty a.m. The night receptionist was on the phone, her long hair hanging down over her face. She didn’t notice them tip-toe into the large elevator. Tom held his breath until the heavy brass doors closed, and their upward journey was underway. His palms were slick with sweat but his mouth was dry.
