The Curse of the Wolf Girl

by Martin Millar

  “Mittens?”

  Malveria shuddered. “She must be the only Hiyasta ever to wear them. One would think that no matter how hopeless a Fire Elemental she is, she would at least be able to keep her hands warm. Do you think Daniel and Moonglow will be able to cope with her?”

  Thrix shrugged. “You probably know them as well as I do. Since Markus became Thane, I’ve hardly seen them.”

  “You are not monitoring Kalix, as your mother wished?”

  “No, I’m not,” stated Thrix, forcibly.

  “You still resent that her lover Gawain toyed with your affections before cruelly discarding you?”

  Thrix’s lips tightened and she swallowed an angry retort. “It’s not about Gawain. You know how I hate getting dragged into clan affairs.”

  “One might almost think you regret being a werewolf,” said Malveria, archly.

  “I’m fine being a werewolf,” replied Thrix. “It’s all the other werewolves that bother me.”

  “I would like to remain longer, Enchantress, so that we may watch the Japanese fashion show together on your excellent cable television. But now I must away to play whist.”

  “Whist?” Thrix was surprised. “I didn’t know you played.”

  “Since the Duchess Gargamond initiated a whist evening at her castle it has become popular with the ladies of my court. I don’t love the playing of cards but it will give me a splendid opportunity to show off the fabulous pale blue dress you provided me with last week.”

  Malveria dematerialized in an aroma of jasmine. Thrix wasn’t sure it was a good idea for Agrivex to move into the same household as her young sister Kalix. A household consisting of two young students, one young werewolf, and one young Fire Elemental was a troubling mix. As long as it didn’t engulf Thrix in some sort of family crisis, she didn’t much care. Thrix and Kalix’s friendship had never been strong, and it ended the day her younger sister discovered Thrix had been sleeping with Gawain, the great love of Kalix’s young life. Since then they’d taken care to avoid each other, and Thrix wouldn’t have minded if she were never to encounter her sister again.

  Chapter 4

  Decembrius MacRinnalch remained in London after the great battle. He had no desire to return to the castle in Scotland. Decembrius had been a loyal supporter of Sarapen. Now that Sarapen was dead, the young, red-haired werewolf didn’t know what to do with himself.

  He could have gone home had he wanted. Markus, the new Thane, had extended a pardon to everyone who’d fought against him. The werewolf barons—MacGregor, MacAllister, and MacPhee—had all made their peace with the MacRinnalch clan. Some more sincerely than others, no doubt, but now Sarapen was gone, there was nothing more to fight about. Markus might not be to everyone’s taste as Thane, but it was done now.

  Decembrius sat in a small Italian café in Camden, as he often did in the afternoons. He drank coffee, read a newspaper, and felt dissatisfied with life. Really, he should go back to Scotland. Due to the deaths in the recent feud, he’d found himself elevated to the Great Council of the MacRinnalchs. That was an honor that his mother Lucia had trumpeted all around the clan, but Decembrius couldn’t share her enthusiasm. He’d looked up to Sarapen. He’d been sure that the huge, forceful werewolf, eldest son of the late Thane, would emerge victorious in the struggle over the thaneship. His death had left Decembrius shaken and disillusioned. He couldn’t raise any enthusiasm for clan affairs.

  He stared over the top of his newspaper, focusing his eyes on a spot just above the Michelangelo print of The Last Supper that adorned the café wall. He let his gaze float over the wall then tried to focus on nothing. After a few moments, he frowned and shook his head. From a young age, Decembrius had had the ability to glimpse the future and observe things that were hidden to others. Though he’d never been able to control the power well, in the past year he’d been making some progress. Since the battle in which Sarapen had fallen, his powers of prescience had disappeared. Whatever was in his future, Decembrius couldn’t see it.

  His mother, Verasa’s sister Lucia, couldn’t wait to see him in the council chamber. But the thought of sitting round a table with Thrix and Dominil horrified Decembrius. Both had fought against Sarapen. Thrix had protected Kalix, and Dominil had killed Andris, Sarapen’s bodyguard, another werewolf whom Decembrius had held in high regard.

  His anger subsided back into depression. Decembrius had always had a tendency towards depression and he was worried that he might be heading for a serious episode. While he’d been busy working for Sarapen, he hadn’t noticed it. Now that Sarapen was dead it had come back, and the loss of his powers made it worse. It was another reason not to return to Scotland. The MacRinnalch werewolf clan tended to lack sympathy for depressed werewolves.

  Decembrius tried to distract himself from his gloomy thoughts by looking round the café and by staring openly at two girls who’d just sat down at one of the small tables. Decembrius was young and good-looking in an angular sort of way. As a werewolf of the MacRinnalch clan, his vigor shone through. Here in London, he wasn’t short of female company. Decembrius preferred to keep these affairs hidden from prying eyes at Castle MacRinnalch, particularly his mother’s. Like many of the traditional werewolves in Scotland, Lucia didn’t really approve of the philandering of the younger generation.

  Decembrius brushed his fingers through his thick, dark red hair—he’d grown it longer in recent months—and swept it back. He had another gold stud in his left ear. Since encountering Beauty and Delicious, the notorious cousins of whom the family did not used to speak, Decembrius had made an effort to make himself more stylish. The twins’ wild appearance and lifestyle had made him feel older than his twenty-six years.

  The twins had fought against Sarapen too, of course, albeit not very effectively. Beauty and Delicious weren’t fierce, by werewolf standards. Not like Kalix. There was a werewolf you wouldn’t want to encounter in battle. Even Sarapen had been unable to subdue her. Of course, Kalix was mad. She probably didn’t feel pain like a normal werewolf. Her father, the Thane, had died of injuries she’d inflicted, resulting in her being banished and setting off the whole chain of events that led to the vicious feud. His wife Verasa had nominated her second son Markus as Thane instead of Sarapen her eldest. It led to war and to many deaths. Kalix had started it all, and she’d finished it. Kalix delivered the fatal blow. She’d killed Sarapen. There were many in the clan who would never forgive her.

  Outside an ambulance went by, its siren wailing as it edged its way through the heavy traffic. The bustle of London was very different to the peaceful Scottish Highlands where Decembrius had been raised. These days, he preferred the noise of the city. He stared into his empty coffee cup and realized he’d been thinking about his young cousin Kalix a lot recently. He could still picture her, fighting with an unquenchable fury. Decembrius almost smiled. Kalix was insane in battle. Insane in other ways too, depending on which member of the family you listened to.

  She was beautiful as well, in a waif-like way. What had she been doing since Sarapen’s death, he wondered. But Kalix’s location was a secret. Technically she was still a fugitive from the clan, and the Mistress of the Werewolves was not about to risk having her youngest daughter dragged back to Castle MacRinnalch to face punishment. Thrix and Dominil probably knew where she lived, but they wouldn’t pass on any information to a recent enemy like himself. Kalix was hidden, by secrecy and sorcery, and couldn’t be found.

  Decembrius pursed his lips. Was she still seeing Gawain? She had taken up with him at a young age, in an affair that had scandalized the clan. Gawain had been banished, though they’d gotten back together eventually. Whether their renewed relationship had survived the trauma of the MacRinnalch feud, Decembrius didn’t know. He hoped it hadn’t. Decembrius had never much liked Gawain.

  Decembrius scowled as he ordered more coffee. He glanced at the clock on the wall. He still had some time to kill before meeting the Douglas-MacPhees. It wasn’t an encounter he was looking fo
rward to. Duncan, Rhona, and Fergus were a vicious, criminal trio of wolves who had no regard for the clan or anyone else. Or rather, they had been a vicious trio until Kalix had killed the huge werewolf Fergus. Remembering this, Decembrius almost smiled. Fergus had also been fighting for Sarapen, but Decembrius couldn’t pretend he was sorry about his death. Kalix had destroyed him—ripped him apart in the full fury of her battle madness. Fergus’s superior size and strength had counted for nothing.

  “Duncan and Rhona won’t be quite so sanguine about it,” mused Decembrius, and he wondered if they might be seeking Kalix, looking for revenge. The thought troubled him, and he resolved to find out from them if they had any clue as to her whereabouts.

  Chapter 5

  Moonglow’s anxiety over Kalix’s debut at college persisted throughout the day. No amount of entreaties from Daniel could ease her concern.

  “Should we pick her up after class?” Kalix’s college wasn’t far from their university building, just south of the river.

  Daniel was against the idea. “If we meet her at the gate, she might think we’re treating her like a kid. It’ll just annoy her. Stop worrying. Everything will be fine.”

  Moonglow was unconvinced. As she traveled home with Daniel, she was too preoccupied to listen to anything he had to say. His eternal campaign to persuade Moonglow to go out with him was proving even less successful than usual. He’d tried to explain to her how he’d powered his way through level nine of Grimcat, his current favorite game, but she hardly seemed to listen, even though Daniel was sure the story reflected well on him. Level nine was notably difficult.

  When they arrived home, Moonglow hurried up the stairs to their small flat above the empty shop.

  “I’ll make tea for them. It’ll be welcoming. And maybe I should light a scented candle. Something soothing.”

  A few minutes later, the downstairs front door banged heavily, and there was the sound of two pairs of booted feet ascending the stairs. The living room door opened, and Kalix trudged into the room. As Moonglow greeted her brightly, she kept on trudging, an obviously unhappy werewolf.

  “Stupid college,” she muttered and disappeared upstairs to her room.

  Vex bounded into the living room behind her.

  “I got a gold star!” she shrieked and leapt around, brandishing a notebook that, Moonglow noted, she had already decorated with luminous, colored inks. “I got a gold star for my poem!”

  Daniel and Moonglow were puzzled. They knew the college Vex was attending did cater to people with poor reading skills, but it was for adults, not children. They hadn’t expected it would be handing out gold stars.

  “Look!” yelled Vex, happily. Moonglow looked. On the first page there was a very short poem, and beneath it Vex had written “goldd starr.”

  “Eh…did the teacher give you that?”

  “Yes! She told the whole class how great it was! So obviously it was worth a gold star. Do you want to read it?”

  Moonglow smiled at the young Fire Elemental’s enthusiasm and took the proffered book.

  I wish I had a hedgehog.

  I’d take it for walks up the Great Volcano

  which is close to the palace.

  I live in a golden palace.

  “The teacher said it was really imaginative!” explained Vex, still very excited. “Isn’t it great? I got a gold star on my first day at college!”

  “It is imaginative,” agreed Moonglow, sincerely. Almost every word was misspelled, but English, after all, was not Vex’s first language. She noticed that Vex had taken the notion of decorating each letter to great extremes. Having started out by putting little hearts over each “i,” she’d decided that the idea could be expanded. Now every letter seemed to have some colorful decoration. It made for a bright and confusing page.

  “Do you want to read my poem too?”

  “I already—eh, yes, of course,” said Daniel, looking at her eager face.

  “How did Kalix get on?” asked Moonglow.

  Vex stopped smiling. “I don’t think she liked it so much.”

  “I better go and see,” said Moonglow, and she departed the living room to the sound of Vex reciting her poem.

  * * *

  Upstairs in her tiny room, Kalix lay on her bed, mildly intoxicated from laudanum. Recently she’d been taking less of the opiate, but she still used it regularly. While laudanum was rarely found in the world these days, as humans had moved on to other drugs, a few werewolves still preferred it. Every week Kalix would make the long journey over to Merchant MacDoig’s premises in East London to replenish her supply. The merchant had introduced her to the opium derivative at a young age. Now the young werewolf was dependent on it. It was expensive, which was a continual problem for Kalix.

  The young werewolf hadn’t enjoyed her first day at college at all. She’d been surrounded by people she didn’t know. Kalix was never comfortable with strangers. While Vex had talked cheerfully to anyone who came within range, Kalix had resisted all efforts to engage her in conversation, maintaining a hostile silence all day. Unlike Vex, who was eager to throw herself into college life, Kalix had no such ambitions. Though it frustrated and embarrassed her that she was practically illiterate, she had no desire to sit in a classroom and display her ignorance to everyone.

  She had been horrified when the teacher had announced that everyone was going to compose a poem. Though Kalix made an effort to record her own life and wrote every day in her private journal, she’d never written a poem. She had no idea how to do it, or even where to start. The teacher’s instructions that each student should just use their own imagination had seemed to her completely inadequate. While other students—some of them foreign, with hardly any grasp of the language at all—had grappled with the task, Kalix had sat quite still, head bowed, staring forlornly at her exercise book. She’d written nothing at all and found the whole experience very embarrassing, bordering on the traumatic. College was even worse than she’d expected. Vex, naturally, had been thrilled by the whole thing. On the tube ride home, she wouldn’t shut up about her poem; a poem that, as far as Kalix could see, was the most stupid thing ever written. By that time, all Kalix wanted to do was get home and fill herself with laudanum, which she’d now accomplished. She felt a brief nausea, then some welcome drowsiness. She pulled her quilt over her and wished she never had to go back to college.

  Chapter 6

  Dulled by laudanum, Kalix drifted into an ugly dream. Misshapen trees loomed above her as she crept through a darkened wood, and though she thought she knew her way, she suddenly found her route blocked by bushes, bushes that crackled with a fierce array of thorns.

  “I’m lost,” she whispered.

  “Lost? You’ve been to the Forests of the Werewolf Dead before.”

  Kalix cried out in alarm and tried to see who spoke, but the figure was hidden behind a huge tree, an ash that moved towards her, branches reaching out like long fingers. Kalix lashed out with her claws, and as she did so, she woke quite violently. Her body was covered with sweat. She’d fallen asleep fully dressed and had overheated beneath her quilt. Kalix threw off the cover and sat upright, shaking her head to clear it. It was the second time this week she’d dreamed of the Forests of the Werewolf Dead.

  “I went there once already,” thought the young werewolf. “I’m not ready to go back.”

  She stood up and was momentarily disoriented because she imagined herself to be in werewolf shape as she had been in the dream. But she was human at the moment: seventeen-and-a-half years old, attending college, and living in London. Much the same as thousands of others, except that she’d been born into the ruling family of the MacRinnalchs, the largest clan of werewolves in the country. For the first part of her life, she’d lived at Castle MacRinnalch in the Scottish Highlands. For much of the past two years, she’d been on the run, hiding from her family, hiding from werewolf hunters, living in alleyways and abandoned warehouses. Now she was no longer running, her life should be better. Kalix w
asn’t sure that it was.

  Her new domestic setting was more comfortable than sleeping rough, but she hadn’t yet become used to sharing her life with other people. It annoyed her that she had to moderate her behavior. When she’d lived on the streets, she had begged for money or stolen it. Now, she couldn’t do that. Moonglow wouldn’t like her to beg or steal, particularly to buy laudanum. Kalix frowned and felt angry. What did she care what Moonglow thought? She was Kalix MacRinnalch. Only three months ago, she’d slain her brother Sarapen in combat, and he’d been the most ferocious werewolf in the land. Kalix MacRinnalch shouldn’t have to worry about what Moonglow thought. And yet, it wasn’t really that simple. Moonglow had been kind. She’d given her a place to live when she had nowhere else to go. She’d bathed her wounds and provided her with food. Moonglow had saved her life. Kalix’s frown deepened. It was a strange feeling, being obligated to someone. She didn’t like it.

  Kalix wondered, as she often did, whether she should leave. She didn’t have anywhere else to go. She had no other friends apart from Daniel and Moonglow, and she couldn’t return to the family home at Castle MacRinnalch. If she did, she’d be liable to punishment for her past crimes. The family still held her responsible for the death of her father.

  Today’s experiences at college hadn’t brightened her mood. Kalix sighed and sipped from her bottle of laudanum. Though the opiate dulled the anxiety to which she was prone, it exacerbated her depression.

  Far above, the moon appeared, a small crescent. Kalix felt it. She considered changing into her werewolf shape for comfort. Like all the purest-blooded MacRinnalchs, Kalix didn’t need the full moon to change. She could do it under any moon, on any night. On the three nights around the full moon, the change came on automatically; other nights the MacRinnalchs were free to choose. On their remote Scottish estates, the werewolves would change very frequently. Though they were discreet about their true nature, they weren’t ashamed of it. Nor was Kalix. She was proud to be a werewolf. But here in London, she had to take more care to keep it secret. Daniel and Moonglow had accepted her as she was. That didn’t mean others would. Besides, there were the hunters to think about.