The Wereling 1: Wounded

by Stephen Cole

  ‘Sorry, man,’ Tom said, backing away angrily. ‘But I didn’t come here to give you a private show.’ He balled up the tatters of his old jeans. ‘Be seeing you, OK?’

  ‘Yes, I think you will,’ said the old man, smiling grimly.

  Tom turned and fled from the Cinema Medin, not stopping till he was a good two blocks away, but there was no sign that he was being followed.

  Things could be better, he decided, as he slung the shredded remains of his old jeans into a nearby trash can. The old man had creeped him out big time. His bare feet stung from running along the cracked and grimy pavements, and the stolen shirt was cold and clammy, chafing his skin.

  ‘The only werewolf in town with chilblains and jogger’s nipple,’ Tom reflected ruefully.

  A thought struck him. He pulled his old jeans back out from the trash and delved half-heartedly into the pockets, just in case he was carrying cash without even realising it.

  From a back pocket he pulled out a dog-eared piece of white paper, folded in four. Tingles chased themselves across his chest as he opened it and read:

  g

  Sorry, sick boy.

  It’s me they want most, and I need to pick up speed.

  Go on to New Orleans. AB@Bloodlettings.com can

  help find Jicaque. Troll Lover said so.

  Good luck from one who needs it too.

  K

  Tom frowned, not comprehending what he was reading. Then it clicked: this was the note Kate had written when she ran out on him back at Patience’s house. He’d been carrying it round with him ever since.

  He traced a finger over her spidery handwriting. It felt to him that the paper dated from a whole different era, even though it was only a few days old. Kate had seemed so distant back then. Distant as his old life seemed to him now.

  Tom studied the note again. Bloodlettings. Didn’t sound very enticing, but marginally preferable to a troll lover, whatever that was.

  Anyway, it was all he had.

  There was a discarded copy of yesterday’s Times-Picayune by the trash cans. Tom leafed through the paper until he found an ad for a cyber-café. A passing couple gave him directions, and he set off on tender feet for the Arts District.

  *

  When Kate awoke she found herself slumped in a chair in a chilly storeroom. A dim bulb glowed over her head. Rusting shelf units supported boxes and crates, all unmarked. A table had been placed in the middle of the room before her. She imagined someone unpleasant would be sitting behind it before long.

  Something else with unpleasant possibilities was sat just behind her: a black bucket, with a roll of toilet paper and some antiseptic wipes. She shuddered. Clearly someone would be keeping her here for some time.

  Then again, maybe she’d wind up too numb even to notice; a low humming noise told her this place was definitely refrigerated. The temperature couldn’t be far above freezing. Someone had draped a blanket around her shoulders, and she supposed she should be grateful, but the gratitude left her the second she tried to stand. Her ankle was cuffed to the heavy chair she’d been dumped in, and she fell forwards with a yelp of surprise.

  The noise brought someone coming.

  Kate heard bolts sliding back, looked up, forced a look of icy defiance on to her face.

  It slipped as soon as she saw who had come to visit.

  ‘Well, well. Grovelling on the floor where you belong?’

  ‘Patience,’ Kate gasped.

  The burly old woman rolled into the room, her bulk squeezed into an electric wheelchair. A fierce line of stitches puckered her brown skin from cheek to chin, and her eyes were bruised yellow-black. She kept one hand beneath the red blanket that covered her knees. The other was twisted into an arthritic claw.

  Kate got up carefully and sat back in her seat, trying to keep her face neutral. ‘Doesn’t look like you’ll be hunting for a while,’ she murmured.

  ‘I nearly died.’ Patience spat. She came to a halt behind the metal desk. ‘Hate kept me going, girl. Kept me alive.’ Her face screwed up in contempt. ‘So keep talking, you little bitch, ’cause I’m hating you more all the time and it feels good.’

  Kate affected disinterest. ‘Come a long way to gloat, haven’t you?’

  ‘Not as far as your mama’s come,’ Patience said slowly.

  Kate looked away, unable to hide her fear.

  ‘She’s caught an airplane and getting closer all the time. That’s one little reunion I’d hate to miss. Besides, I was flown out here,’ the old woman added proudly. ‘Papa Takapa wanted to hear my tale in person.’

  That name again. ‘He wanted to hear about me and Tom?’ Kate questioned.

  ‘He arranged to have you picked up.’ Patience puffed herself up. ‘And he’s chosen me to watch over you. He’s got hideouts and strongholds all over the country – here, New York, Chicago … ’

  ‘And are they all as crappy as this?’ Kate shivered. ‘It’s freezing in here.’

  Patience shook her head softly. ‘Got to keep the temperature steady. Papa Takapa’s got science going on … ’

  Kate was getting tired of this mystery man stuff. ‘Just who is this Takapa?’

  ‘You’ll be meeting him soon enough. He’s the man who’s going to turn things round for the ’wolf.’

  ‘Is that a fact?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ The old woman sounded deadly serious.

  Kate puzzled for a moment over the name. Takapa. It felt like someone had just walked over her grave. ‘Takapa’s Native American, isn’t it? What a poser. Bet his real name’s Nigel or something.’

  ‘Too much schooling in you, Miss,’ Patience said disapprovingly. ‘You’re plenty smart. But man smart, not ’wolf smart.’

  ‘I read it in a book tracing the history of silverbloods in ’wolf communities if you must know,’ Kate told her. The answer came to her. ‘Yes. The Atakapa were a Navajo tribe, right? They worshipped the wolf. And your Papa’s one of their descendants, I suppose?’

  ‘Suppose he is,’ Patience sneered. ‘And they didn’t just worship the wolf. You may know the tribe’s name, but I wonder if your little sweetheart the boy-wolf knows its meaning.’

  Kate yawned noisily.

  Patience leaned forwards and licked her lips. ‘It means “Eaters of Men”, sugar.’

  g

  g

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Tom sipped an abandoned coffee at the cyber-café. He’d hung around until someone left their terminal before their hour was up, and slipped on himself.

  It was time to see what Bloodlettings.com was about.

  Almost disappointingly, it turned out to be a Louisiana estate agents. The head guy’s name was Adam Blood. Kind of a sick pun, Tom felt, but they had three branches so it couldn’t be harming business. He’d clearly underestimated how wacky the world of real estate truly was.

  There was an address for the head office in New Orleans, in the Garden District. Tom finished the cold coffee with a grimace, then plucked an abandoned crust of sandwich from the next table and shoved that in his mouth too. It did little to stave off the hunger he felt, but perhaps nothing short of bringing down a herd of wildebeest could do that for him now.

  AB@Bloodlettings.com can help find Jicaque, the note said.

  ‘I hope so,’ Tom murmured. Then he left the café with a nod of thanks to the unimpressed staff.

  He only hoped Adam Blood was working late tonight.

  Tom’s spirits, trodden to mush by his long, blistering walk through the cold streets, rose sharply when he saw the light blazing upstairs at the Bloodlettings branch shoehorned into a colourful parade of shops on Magazine Street.

  He pressed the buzzer. When three short bursts brought no response, he kept his finger in place while counting slowly to sixty.

  By the time he’d counted twenty-two, an irritated male voice snapped out of the speaker grill by the door. ‘Yes? What?’

  ‘I need to speak to Adam Blood,’ Tom said, and held his breath.

 
; ‘You’re speaking to him. We’re closed.’

  Result. ‘May I come in? It’s really urgent.’

  Blood sighed. ‘We open again at nine-thirty tomorrow morning.’

  His accent was weird, British maybe. Tom took a deep breath. ‘It’s about finding Jicaque.’

  The speaker grill remained silent. Then the door buzzed off its latch. Tom pushed it open. He trooped up the narrow stairs into a smart, well-lit office.

  Adam Blood was as smart and handsome as the teak desk he sat behind. He was slim, probably mid-thirties, dressed in a sharp dark suit with a blue shirt and no tie. His brown hair was tousled and swept forward like he thought he was Zac Efron or something. He blinked his blue eyes in surprise as Tom came gingerly into the room; then boggled in alarm.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Blood fussed, ‘don’t take another step until I’ve put down some paper. This carpet is Sumptuous Cream. It doesn’t mix with Grimy Feet, all right?’ He grabbed a selection of colour brochures showing fancy houses in and around New Orleans and laid a trail over to a neat leather couch. ‘Now, who the hell are you?’

  ‘My name’s Tom Anderson.’

  Blood gave him a long, thoughtful look. ‘Well, Tom Anderson, you’re definitely not about to buy or lease anything from me, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I can drop this stupid posh accent,’ said Blood cheerily in a rougher, broader voice. ‘Helps when you’re shifting posh properties, but I bore myself arseless with it all day long.’

  Tom stared at him, bemused. ‘But you’re still English, right?’

  ‘Born and bred.’ He winked. ‘Just more Cockney than Kensington, if you catch my drift.’

  Tom didn’t, but decided not to dwell on it. ‘I, uh, think we have a mutual friend – Kate Folan?’

  Blood stared at him blankly. ‘Kate who?’

  Tom’s hopes sank a little. ‘She thought you could help find Jicaque. She said “Troll Lover said so”.’

  ‘Troll Lover!’ Blood yelled, his face lighting up like a child’s at Christmas. He clapped his hands. ‘Good old Trolly! So, you know her, do you?’

  ‘Troll Lover is a girl?’ Tom stared at him – and something clicked. Of course, Kate had told him she never used her real name when using these chat rooms. Could Troll Lover be one of her aliases? A stupid, made-up name that no one could trace back to her?

  ‘I’ve been seeing quite a lot of her till recently,’ said Tom. ‘I reckon Kate Folan is Troll Lover. We came here together, but—’

  ‘But this is brilliant!’ Blood enthused. ‘Trolly’s been a real help to me in my work!’

  Now it was Tom’s turn to frown. ‘She’s helped you sell real estate?’

  ‘No, my work. My real work. I do the property bit to pay the bills, and because it’s a good way of garnering, er, local knowledge.’ He gave a crooked smile. ‘I’m one of a group of what you might call mystic vigilantes. We keep tabs on the dark, satanic underbelly of the Crescent City.’ He winked. ‘You know, as you do.’

  ‘Gotcha,’ said Tom, a little overwhelmed.

  ‘Anyway, where is she, Kate the troll lover? And what’s she like? Young? Old? Sexy?’ Blood held up a hand, shut his eyes. ‘No, don’t tell me. She’s the troll, a big, fat bird with three chins, I just know she’s—’

  Tom cut across, raising his voice. ‘Skinny and dark-haired, kind of cute I guess – ’

  ‘Hallelujah!’ Blood broke in.

  ‘– and way too young for you. But she’s in trouble. Big trouble. She’s been kidnapped.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’ Blood’s face fell. ‘She’s really too young for me?’

  Tom wanted to grab Blood by the throat. This was the guy who could help them? ‘Look, did she ever tell you about the … uh, about the werewolves?’

  Blood was suddenly grave. ‘Yeah, she did. She’s an expert, pretty much everything I know about the lupine community comes from her.’ He looked at Tom expectantly. ‘So?’

  ‘We kind of pissed off some purebloods,’ Tom admitted. ‘They’ve been chasing after us. And now they’ve got Kate. They took her away somewhere.’

  ‘Dick of Diablo! The ’wolves are holding her? Are you sure?’

  ‘Certain. I saw her my—’

  ‘Wait. All that stuff on the news about a wild animal chasing a stolen ambulance through the Warehouse District – you were caught up in that?’

  ‘Kind of,’ Tom half-admitted.

  ‘My cellphone’s been ringing all day about that,’ Blood said. ‘So many people saw it we figured it must be a hoax. But it fits … My boys told me something was going on with the ’wolves.’ Abruptly, Blood jumped up and began hopping about as he pulled off first one shoe, then the other. A second bizarre ballet ensued as he peeled off his black socks and tossed them over to Tom.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Cover up those filthy bloody feet so you can’t tread dirt anywhere. We’re going uptown, to my place.’

  Tom eyed both Blood and the socks suspiciously. ‘Why?’

  ‘We need to find poor old Trolly now as well as your Jicaque, don’t we?’ said Blood, slipping his bare feet back inside his leather brogues. ‘And the ways and means are back at my place.’

  Tom waited nervously in the luxury of cotton socks while Blood brought his car around from some underground car park. Convincing Blood had been easy. Too easy? What if he came back with ’wolves in tow? What if he was one himself?

  Blood pulled up outside in a sleek silver BMW. He was alone.

  Tom opened the door and slid on to the soft leather of the back seat. The luxury almost brought tears to his eyes after his endless trekking round the cluttered streets.

  ‘So … why so keen to meet the old medicine man?’ Blood asked.

  ‘I have a problem, and Kate thinks he’s the only one who can help me with it,’ Tom said guardedly.

  ‘Secretive little sod, aren’t you,’ Blood said, as he turned right on to a wide, tree-lined avenue. ‘Well, he’s meant to be past it these days, old Jicaque. Of interest to die-hard enthusiasts only since the werewolves put him out of business.’

  ‘So he should be easier to find, right?’ Tom said gruffly.

  ‘True enough.’ Blood glanced at him and smiled. ‘My contacts have been digging about since Trolly mailed a few days back and they’re quite hopeful. Meant to be running a health food store or something.’ He grew pensive. ‘My contacts also informed me that something curious is happening in the lupine community.’

  ‘What?’ asked Tom guardedly.

  ‘Well, the community keeps pretty much to itself usually,’ Blood explained. ‘But someone’s been trying to band them all together.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Funny name. Papa Smurf? Papa someone … ’

  Tom felt a frisson of apprehension. ‘Papa Takapa?’

  Blood nodded, his frown deepening. ‘You’ve heard of him too?’

  ‘Someone told me on a train,’ Tom muttered. ‘So how about you?’ he asked, steering the subject away from himself. ‘You’re from London, right? Why’d you live here?’

  ‘Came for a holiday and didn’t want to leave.’ Blood shrugged. ‘So I stayed.’

  ‘And you say you keep tabs on the weird stuff that goes down around here,’ Tom continued.

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘So what turned you on to it?’

  ‘I lost friends to some pretty weird shit in this city,’ Blood replied casually.

  ‘Details?’ Tom asked.

  ‘You’re just a kid,’ Blood said lightly. ‘You don’t want details.’

  ‘Uh-uh.’ Tom shook his head. ‘Too easy for you. If I’m going to trust you I need to know why you’re helping me now. What’s in it for you?’

  ‘A cynical little sod, as well as secretive!’

  Comes from being thought dead for five weeks and losing half your humanity to a wolf, Tom thought bitterly, but said nothing.

  ‘OK. Details. How about amateur voodoo cultists ge
tting carried away with their sacrificial blades,’ Blood said mildly. ‘Or vampire wannabes, who get their wishes granted.’ He paused. ‘Or a girlfriend who was turned werewolf.’

  Tom reacted. ‘What happened to her? Did she fight it, get turned back again?’

  ‘She didn’t want to turn back.’ Blood heaved a long sigh. ‘Werewolves bite to kill, or else to turn a prospective mate. Seems she was bored with me, and liked the lifestyle a hairier bloke could offer her.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Tom said.

  ‘Me too. Killed off a bloody good relationship. As well as a number of the locals.’

  Tom was getting uneasy with Blood’s offhand attitude. ‘So what, this stuff is a joke to you?’

  ‘No, it’s not all a joke,’ said Blood mildly. ‘But if you don’t laugh about it sometimes, you wind up screaming.’ He looked at Tom, blue eyes suddenly haunted. ‘Trust me on that.’

  I want to trust you, Tom thought.

  ‘So, to fill my empty nights I looked into the whole supernatural deal a bit more. And scared myself witless.’ Blood shrugged. ‘Once I knew what was really going on around here, I couldn’t just shut it all out again. I found I could only sleep at night if I was keeping an eye on things.’

  ‘You just watch?’ Tom felt a lurch of disappointment. ‘You don’t try to stop it?’

  ‘I don’t have a death wish,’ Blood said tightly. ‘I’m no hero and neither are my friends in the group. All we try to do is help people who find themselves mixed up in stuff they don’t really understand. Before it’s too late for them. Or the poor sods who wind up their victims.’

  It’s too late for me, Tom wanted to scream.

  But Blood might not help him if he knew the truth.

  Troubled, Tom gazed out of the window as they drove along leafy uptown streets, the darkness beaten back by ornate street lamps. He took in rows of towering wood-panelled and colonnaded mansions punctuated with narrow boxy dwellings and even humble cottages. The sight was both beautiful and kind of sad at the same time.

  Kate was never far from his thoughts.

  At last, Blood pulled up outside a smart-looking townhouse. ‘We’re here.’