by Naomi Clark
***
I spent the night tossing and turning, resisting the urge to scratch my itching legs to pieces. It was a relief when the sun finally rose. Light peeked through the curtains and gave me an excuse to stop trying to sleep. I went straight to the bathroom and ripped off my dressings. My legs looked much better, the skin white and patchy instead of red and blistered, though the burns were still warm and tender. I rubbed them cautiously, wondering if I dared take a bath. It was probably going to really hurt. I decided to risk it. I felt grimy after my restless night and the thought of going to meet Shannon stinking of sweat didn’t appeal to me. I’m sure it would be the last thing on her mind, but still. A wolf’s got to have standards.
I ran myself a lukewarm bath. After some thought, I wrapped my legs loosely in bin liners and kept them propped up on the bath edge as much as possible. It was the most uncomfortable bath ever, and I only just avoided slipping and cracking my head getting out, but it did the job. I dressed with a spring in my step, excited to be bringing Shannon home—they had to let her out today, they had to—and the thought that I might be able to shift later. Scratch that—I would shift later. If I didn’t, the choice would be taken from me. The wolf was too restless.
I spent a few minutes playing with my hair, trying to make it look less burnt, then gave it up as a bad job and went to check on my makeshift Pack. Clémence was curled up on the sofa under a soft green and blue tartan blanket that didn’t look sparkly enough to belong to Sun. She was fast asleep, snoring lightly, and I didn’t have the heart to wake her. I set about quietly making myself a hot chocolate and sat at the tiny kitchen table with Shannon’s laptop, watching the sun through the window as it slowly climbed up over the city.
There was an email from Vince waiting for me amongst some junk mail. I opened it with a sense of yearning, desperate for some normality, some idle chat and home gossip that would carry me away from the madness.
Hey, where you at, girlfriend? Everyone over here’s going mad about these killings in Paris. U and Shannon okay? Alpha Humans are loving it—they’ve got this big campaign on about rabid werewolves and all that shit. A couple of wolf kids got beaten up at the local school yesterday. Nothing serious, but everyone reckons it’s Alpha Humans. Hope ur safe over there—let me know so we know u haven’t been eaten by monsters! Xxx
As I read, shivers crept down my spine, a mix of anger and unease. Typical Alpha fucking Humans! They were latching onto this horror story and spinning it to their own ends. It was just another piece of anti-wolf propaganda to them, with no concern for the truth, or the tragedy for the victims and their families. I reread the email, pausing at the news of the attacks on wolf kids before skipping to the end. I couldn’t think about that. It reminded me too much of Adam.
I fired back a reply, lying through my teeth. We were fine and having a lovely time, I told Vince. There was no point telling him the truth; he’d tell Joel, Joel would tell Glory, Glory would tell everyone, and before I knew it, my parents would be on the doorstep insisting I come home.
By the time I’d finished my hot chocolate, it was nearly seven o’clock. High time I found some food, I decided. Clémence hadn’t stirred, but I didn’t want to leave her to wake to an empty apartment, so I reluctantly shook her awake. “I’m going out,” I told her. “Do you want to come or would you rather stay? Sun should be up soon; you can keep her from doing anything crazy.”
Clémence laughed, then stretched and yawned. “I think I will stay with Sun. You are going to fetch Shannon, yes? You are coming back here then?” She sounded anxious.
“Yeah, we’ll be straight back,” I promised. “I don’t think Shannon will be up for doing much.” I planned to make sure she didn’t do much. As much as I wanted to salvage the week and do all the touristy things we’d planned, I didn’t want Shannon to wear herself out. Rest and relaxation was going to be the key. We could always come back to Paris, if Joel’s parents didn’t mind us turning their flat into a shelter for down-and-out werewolves.
Although, I reflected as I waved goodbye to Clémence, maybe Barcelona would be a better choice next time.
***
To my delight, Shannon was waiting for me in the reception area. She sat in a corner near a tall potted plant, still looking too pale for my liking, but she was there, ready to go. I couldn’t ask for more than that. She stood when she saw me, smiling brightly and I rushed to her, gripping her elbows gently to steady her.
“I won’t collapse,” she laughed, kissing me. “I feel much better.”
I brushed her hair from her face and examined her critically. Definitely still too pale, but she did look better. Not as tired. “Let’s get out of here, then,” I said. “I’m sick of hospitals.”
We headed out hand-in-hand and at my nagging, made straight for the café Clémence and I visited yesterday. Shannon looked like she could do with a good meal, not that crap the hospital served. Over a cheese and ham omelet, I filled Shannon in on everything that had happened while she was bedridden. She listened in silence, a slight frown on her lips.
“You weren’t joking about Clémence then. How long is she staying?”
I shrugged. “I suppose until she and Thérèse work out their living arrangements.”
Shannon laughed. “You know what? If almost dying in a fire and getting beaten up by her ex-boyfriend hasn’t motivated Thérèse to move in with Clémence, I don’t know what will.”
I frowned. “Don’t say that. We don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors.”
“We know what’s not going on,” she argued. “Clémence is homeless, the project she’s dedicating herself to is in ashes and her girlfriend is doing nothing to help. Does that sound right to you?”
I shifted in my seat. It didn’t. “But it’s not our business.”
“It is if Clémence is staying with us.”
Sensing an argument approaching—one that could quickly become the old Pack argument I had quickly grown to hate—I changed the subject. “I suppose we should go past the police station before we head home.”
Shannon nodded, a brief shadow flicking over her face. “I’m not sure I want to.”
“Why not?”
She stared down at her omelet, her face flushed. I leaned forwards to cover her hand with mine. “Shannon?”
“It sounds stupid...”
“It won’t to me,” I assured her.
“It’s just that I’ve been thinking about the...that night. A lot.” She rubbed the back of her neck. Nervous? That wasn’t like Shannon. “And I know it sounds ridiculous, Ayla, but the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that whatever attacked us wasn’t human.” She lowered her voice at her final words, hushing herself as if she couldn’t bear to say them.
“Not human,” I repeated, my heart skipping. “So...werewolf?”
She shook her head. “I know how wolves attack. Bloody hell, if that thing reminded me of anything, it was a junkie. Remember that case I did back north a few years ago? The cokehead?”
I nodded, grimacing. Shannon had spent almost three months tailing a married man whose wife thought he was having an affair. It turned out his secret love was coke and prostitutes and lots of them. One night he’d realized Shannon was following him and attacked her. The memory still made me growl. She’d been fine—just bruises and scrapes—but only because he’d been too high to throw a punch properly.
“Well, it reminded me of that. Desperate. Needy, craving something. It was motivated by hunger.” She shook her head. “I know that sounds stupid, but that’s how I feel.”
I nodded slowly, hoping she’d say ‘vampire’ first so I didn’t have to, but she lapsed into silence. I gave her a nudge. “Hungry,” I said. “And the fact that it bit us, the fact that it poisoned us...”
Her hand rose to her bite wound automatically. “No human or wolf I ever heard of has a sedative in their saliva,” she said finally, then looked up at me at last, lips pursed. “What do you think it was?”
On the other hand, did it matter? It wasn’t as if I could go to the police and tell them to stock up on garlic and wooden stakes. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to actually say ‘vampire’ aloud either. It was just such a crazy word. It turned the world upside down to even admit the possibility. “I think it’s some kind of apex predator,” I said carefully. “Something really rare and dangerous, something like a werewolf, I suppose, but...”
“Something like a leech?” Shannon offered. “A vampire?”
The word fell between us, heavy and unreal. I heaved a sigh of relief, sitting back in my chair and nodded. “Yeah. Yes. A vampire. It’s insane, but…”
“Is it that insane?” she asked reasonably, sipping her coffee with a gleam in her eye. “You’re a werewolf, after all. You’re a human being who turns into a wolf—or a wolf who turns into a human, if you want to be pedantic. That’s pretty insane too.”
“No it’s not! Wolves have been around just as long as you puny humans,” I argued. “We’re not some kind of freaky monster, we’re completely natural creatures.”
“Well, you would say that,” she teased me. “But when wolves announced themselves to the world, every human on the planet thought ‘freaky monster’, because who ever heard of humans turning into animals outside of fairytales and horror novels? It was just crazy.”
I took her point and it wasn’t far off my own thoughts really. “Fair enough, but vampires. I mean, they’re dead, aren’t they? All the stories say that, every book, every film, says they’re the walking dead. That is crazy. Dead things don’t walk around attacking passers-by for blood.”
“Maybe they’re not dead,” she countered. “That’s just folklore, after all. Think how many legends and stories there are about werewolves that are complete rubbish.”
God! There were too many to count. Drinking water from a wolf’s paw print turned you into a werewolf. Being born on Christmas Day made you a werewolf. Pacts with Satan, certain flowers picked at certain times of day, the list was endless and all so wrong. A little voice in my head whispered, what about Hesketh and his damn wolf strap? It hadn’t made him a werewolf, but it had made him something else. I sighed. Still, not all the stories were true, so I was willing to accept that the stories about vampires might not all be true either.
That didn’t make me feel any better about their existence.
Fourteen
“Of course,” Shannon said as we headed for the Metro home, “it doesn’t matter what we think, because nobody else is going to believe it. They’re going to say it’s a wolf and all the killings will likely go unexplained.”
“Not if they keep happening,” I said. “Eventually forensics will prove something, won’t it?”
“Maybe, but I don’t think this thing will stick around for that.” Shannon took my arm as we headed down the steps to the Metro platform. We were jostled by passers-by on all sides and she wavered as we walked. “The way I see it, this thing will move on. What are the odds it’s been in Paris its whole life but only just started killing recently? I bet it moves around to avoid being caught.”
“You’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“I couldn’t sleep last night,” she admitted. “I just lay there thinking of every vampire film I’ve ever seen, wondering if it would come to finish me off. Wondering if it could get into the hospital without an invitation.” She smiled ruefully. “I got myself into quite a state.”
We waited on the platform. I inhaled deeply, smelling cigarettes and perfume and the distant tang of gas. “They must be rare,” I said, returning to an earlier thought. “If there were as many of them as there are werewolves, we’d know about them. These killings would happen all over the world, all the time, and someone somewhere would know.”
Shannon nodded. “Rare, specialized predators, constantly on the move for new hunting grounds. Or maybe they’re like tigers and have territories?”
“Maybe they hibernate?” I suggested. “Like, they only need to feed every few years or so, and the rest of the time they sleep.” I thought of the catacombs. “They might go underground.”
“Sounds like a horror movie monster to me.”
“Well, that’s what we’re saying, isn’t it?” I glanced around, wondering if anyone was listening in on our conversation and gawking at us in disbelief. “We are talking about vampires, Shannon. Dracula and all that shit.”
“I can’t see that creature running around in a dinner jacket. Bit of a giveaway.”
“So you don’t think we need to stock up on garlic and stakes?” I relaxed a little, lulled by Shannon’s light tone.
“We’re talking about something that lives underground, maybe in graves, if that particular bit of legend is right. Do you think it would even notice garlic?” She shook her head as a train pulled up and we piled in, squeezing through the narrow doors along with everyone else. “The most sensible thing we can do is stay in after dark, Ayla,” she said, finding us a pair of seats by the window.
My wolf whined in protest and the sound slipped past my lips. “God, I need to shift.” I resisted the urge to scratch my burns. I’d change the dressings when we got home and hopefully I’d be healed enough that I could shift, even if it was just for a trot round the flat.
“Maybe we can go for a walk later?” Shannon suggested. “If you’re up for it, we can find a park.”
“And you can throw sticks for me.” I rested my head on her shoulder, smiling wryly. “I’ll be up for it. I just don’t want you wearing yourself out.” From this angle, I could smell the bite wound at her neck, the antiseptic the nurses dressed it with. A chill ran through me as I pictured that creature—the vampire—biting into Shannon’s throat.
“I’ll get back to you on that,” she yawned. “A hot bath and a good book sounds like heaven right now, to be honest.”
That didn’t really mesh with my plan of racing around a park chasing sticks, but I just nestled closer to her and stayed quiet. I’d told Clémence that Shannon would need rest and she did. I could take another night without shifting if need be. I didn’t want Shannon pushing herself so soon. Who knew what long-term effects the creature’s poisonous bite might have? Yeah, I told myself, I’d settle for a quiet afternoon in. Hopefully we could lock Sun and Clémence out of the flat for the rest of the day and have some real peace.
***
Montmartre was a hive of activity. We stepped out of the Metro station and straight into a crush of people. It took me a second to realize they were all heading in the same direction in a hectic rush, like wasps swarming to jam. Shannon and I were pulled along in the current, caught up in the frantic excitement of the crowd as people yelled and chattered to each other. I was reminded nastily of the mob outside Loup Garou before the fire; everyone was hyped up and buzzing; energy poured from them, combustible and unpredictable.
“What’s going on?” Shannon gripped my hand tightly to avoid being pulled away.
I heard sirens in the distance. “That’s coming from Rue de Clichy,” I realized, picking up my pace. “God, you don’t think…?”
“It’s broad daylight,” she said before I could finish. “Slow down, Ayla.”
I didn’t. My wolf was clawing at my insides, roused by the excitement and expectation flowing through the crowd. Instinct powered me forward, towards the sirens and I tugged myself and Shannon free of the stream of people, darting up one of the side streets to find a quicker route towards the police cars.
“Ayla!” Shannon stopped dead, forcing me to do the same and I narrowly avoided slamming into a little old lady loaded with shopping bags. “Slow down!”
I glanced back at her with a flush of guilt. She was pale and breathing hard. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.” I dropped back to her side. “I’m sure the sirens are near our place, is all.”
&nb
sp; “Oh lord, what now?” She closed her eyes briefly. “You don’t think Patric found Clémence or something, do you?”
The thought jolted me back into action and I started moving again, Shannon in tow. She let me pull her along, although I was careful to keep a slower pace this time. A few minutes and a wrong turn later, we found our way back to our street, seconds ahead of the wild crowd of rubberneckers making their way up the hill.
Two police cars were parked at awkward angles between our apartment block and the newsstand opposite. A man in staff uniform gaped out the front door. One impatient-looking police officer leaned against one of the cars, face like thunder. Shouts and snarls echoed out of the doorway of our building, and I recognized Clémence’s voice with a sinking heart.
