Things happened fast.
The beast came through the door and across the floor, heading straight for Itchy. The wee man stood up, spilling the table sideways and getting it between him and the slavering thing.
Everything seemed to slow. I heard claws scratch on the floorboard as it came forward. Its eyes were blue, almost no white showing. Its tongue lolled, dripping thick drool between yellowed fangs.
It stopped as the men in the room stood to surround it.
"Hit the switch!" someone shouted. "For fuck's sake, hit the switch!"
But I could see it wasn't time. The beast was still short of the trapdoor...a good six feet short.
"Get the bastard thing!" someone else called.
But no one moved.
The beast growled...a low, rumbling thing. Suddenly it dropped its head and rooted around between its legs, licking at its genitals.
"I wish I could do that," Itchy said nervously.
"Give it a biscuit and maybe it'll let you," George said.
That brought a laugh all around the room, but it was quickly stifled as the beast started to move again. It leaned back on its haunches and leapt, straight at Itchy...flying over the trapdoor and hitting the wee man full in the chest. Before anyone else had moved Itchy's throat was torn open and the air filled with the coppery tang of blood.
*****
There was a second when none of us could quite believe what we'd just seen. It was Sad Sam who took the initiative.
"Fucking bastard!" he shouted, and broke a chair over the beast's broad back.
It turned on him, fast, blood dripping now with the drool.
Sad Sam stepped back, but we all saw that he wasn't going to be fast enough. The beast howled, so loud in the enclosed space that some dropped to their knees, holding palms to their ears.
The beast moved in on Sad Sam.
The cowering man threw his arms up in front of his face, eyes closed, trying, but not managing to scream.
The beast tensed, ready to spring. Everybody in the room knew that Sam had less than a second left to live.
Everyone except Jim Crawford. I hadn't seen him come in, but he looked angry enough to do someone some damage. He stepped forward and stood between the beast and Sam.
"It's a square go you're wanting, is it? Well let's see if you can take me this time, fucker."
He swung a punch that connected with the beast's head and knocked it sideways. It sprawled on the floor then tried to spring back. Its claws gouged splinters out of the wood as it fought to regain balance.
The big man didn't give it time. He stepped in and grabbed it from behind in a half nelson. He locked his hands behind its neck and applied pressure, bending its snout down towards the deep hair-covered chest.
The beast went crazy, thrashing from side to side, but it couldn't break the big man's hold.
"Not so clever now, are you?" Crawford shouted, and put even more of his strength into the wrestling hold.
The crowd yelled encouragement to Crawford. Suddenly I had a flashback to that day, years before, in the schoolyard. But there would be no teachers arriving this time to break up the fight.
"Kill the bastard!" Sad Sam shouted. "Rip its fucking heid aff!"
But he was premature. One of the beast's rear legs raked down Crawford's left shin, tearing through trousers and leg muscle with equal ease. The big man squealed in pain and lost his grip. He stumbled, almost fell, and was off balance...just for a second, but it was enough for the beast to turn in his arms and lock its jaws around his throat.
Crawford was dead before he hit the ground.
*****
It turned back to where Sad Sam still cowered.
But before it could reach him, the crowd finally moved in.
"That fucker's toast," someone called.
"There's only room for Twa Dugs here!" another shouted.
They'd suddenly become brave. Whether it was the sight of someone they knew being brutally slain, or whether it was pure bloodlust, the result was the same. They were now an angry mob...a bad thing to have in a Glasgow pub at any time.
"Don't hurt him," I called, just as the beast chewed through someone's leg and blood spurted.
"Fuck that for a game of soldiers!" someone else cried, and they started to thrash the beast with anything they could lay their hands on.
The room turned into a rolling fight, a ball of arms, chair legs, claws and fangs. It was difficult to tell which was the more bestial, the men or the thing that Mark Turner had become.
One man fell away, his lower jaw hanging by the merest bloody thread, looking wide-eyed at the mixture of blood and spit and teeth in his hand. Another writhed on the floor as his life flowed out from a torn femoral artery. The place stank of spilled beer, piss and blood, and the bestial howls were not all coming from the wolf.
Finally, the men started to get the upper hand.
The wolf clawed its way free from a bunch of them and started backing away. A man moved towards it, but retreated fast when it growled and showed him its bloody teeth.
For long seconds there was a standoff, with the beast snarling and snapping at anyone who made the slightest move.
"Fuck this!" somebody shouted. "Let's get it."
They moved in. The wolf snapped at the first man forward, and took a chunk out of his leg, but the second got in a heavy blow with a beer mug that sent the wolf backwards, into a corner.
After that it was all over quickly.
Sad Sam led the pack, armed with a table leg that he pounded, over and over, against the head of the beast.
"Fucking. Lie. Down." He punctuated each shout with a heavier whack. Finally, he stepped back. The beast lay, trembling, on the floor, mewling like a whipped pup."Finish it off," someone called.
But nobody moved.
"Help me, Derek," George said finally.
He took the beast by the shoulders and dragged it over towards the trapdoor. As I bent to help him, the beast whimpered and licked my hand, its tongue hot and rasping on my skin.
George stepped back, hit the switch, and it fell away into the darkness of the cellar below.
CHAPTER 5
The Getaway
As George and I left the bar Sad Sam was being feted as a hero. But Sam only had eyes for the sprawled body of Itchy. I'd rarely seem a man in so much pain.
That is, until George led me down to the cellar.
The beast lay, whimpering, on the stone floor. As we approached, it cowered, head to the ground, tail tucked between its legs, refusing to look us in the eye. It tried to retreat, but the beer barrels prevented it from moving far.
"There, there, boy," George said in a soft voice, moving in closer. "Good boy."
"It's not a fucking pet," I whispered, but George waved me away.
"Who's a good boy, then," he said as he bent closer and put a hand out for the beast to smell.
"For fuck's sake, George...be careful," I said. "It'll have your fucking hand off."
He ignored me and started to stroke under the beast's chin. It nuzzled against his hand and its tail smacked on the floor, just once.
"Come on over, Derek," George said in a low voice. My brain said yes, but my legs said no. I had to force myself to move. I bent down beside George.
"I think this is what you want?" he said, and pointed at the beast's waist.
Down there, among the thick hair, was a strip of hair that was darker still, held in place with the two silver clasps.
As I bent forward, the beast moved its head sharply, and I stood back again.
George cradled its head.
"There, there," he said, comforting it as if it were a baby.
"It's okay, Derek," he said. "Do your thing. Get the belt."
I undid the clasps...and stood back suddenly.
It wasn't like the movies. There was no transition, no receding of hairs or shortening of tooth and claw. One second George was cradling a beast, the next he held a naked, battered youth in his arms.
George made to move, but the youth grabbed his arm and pulled him closer.
He cried, an inarticulate wail, like a teething baby.
"It's all right, lad," George said, his voice still soft. "Everything's all right."
I doubted whether Mark Turner would ever be all right again, but now wasn't the time to say it aloud.
The youth started to shiver uncontrollably
"There's a coat at the door," George said. "Could you fetch it, Derek? The boy needs to get somewhere warm, fast. He's in shock."
I know how he feels.
I put the belt in my pocket, where it immediately started to squirm. I ignored it. Mark Turner needed attention more than it did.
George was feeling along the boy's body. He saw me looking and laughed bitterly. "He's not my type, lad," he said. "Just checking. It doesn't look like anything's broken."
"Oh, he's broken all right," I said softly. I couldn't take my eyes off his face...I'd never seen anyone in that much pain that wasn't already dead.
"Derek," George said quietly. "The coat?"
I turned, but didn't make it as far as the door.
Something crashed to the floor in the bar upstairs, then something else. Through the trapdoor I heard voices rising in anger, then more thuds and crashes.
A voice raised above the rest.
"The belt's here somewhere. Find it!"
I recognized the voice straight away. It carried the authority of someone used to being obeyed...and someone used to projecting his voice to an audience.
The Elf was here.
And by the sound of it, he'd brought an army.
*****
"Time you were going, Derek," George said. He rose, lifting the youth with him. "I'll take care of the boy. We'll see him all right."
The noises from upstairs got louder. Tables were turned, and there were several heavier thuds that sounded like bodies hitting the floor.
"What about...?" I raised my eyes and nodded up to the trapdoor.
"The lads will see to it," George said. "Their blood is up for a fight already...and I can't see a few elves giving them any trouble."
He motioned once more to the door.
"The driver is waiting with your gear out the back. He'll take you to Helensburgh like we arranged earlier. There's a boat to take you to Dublin. After that, you're on your own."
"Thanks George, I..."
"Yeah...you owe me plenty. Now get out of here, before I'm tempted to take that belt off you and take it upstairs."
I knew which side my bread was buttered. I left George to get the boy out and headed up the stairs.
My way was blocked by a tall figure clad in a floor-length black leather coat.
"You're not a regular, then?" I said. I didn't give him time to reply. I drove a fist into his groin. He doubled over, and I kneed him in the head. I had to pull him to one side to get past, and he tumbled away from me down the stairs.
I turned to see George at the bottom, carrying the youth.
The Goth landed at his feet. George stamped down hard and something cracked.
"One down," he said, and smiled. I hoped I never saw that smile directed at me.
"Still here, Derek?" he said.
"On my way, boss," I replied.
The driver raised an eyebrow when I got into the van.
"So, you're sure this time? It's Helensburgh?"
"Aye. As fast as you like and don't spare the horses."
He motioned back at the bar. A chair came through the back window in a shower of glass. A leather clad body followed it, hitting the pavement hard and staying down.
"A bit of a rammy in there tonight?"
"Aye," I said, sitting back and lighting a deserved Camel. "The Women's Institute bingo night got a wee bit heated."
As we pulled out of the yard, four police cars headed in tried to force us out of the way.
"Do you want me to stop?" the driver asked.
"What do you think? Do you fancy a night in the drunk tank in Maryhill?"
"Been there, done that, got the T-shirt," the driver said cheerfully. "And I'm no' in a hurry to go back."
He squeezed past the police cars. For a bad second I thought they were going to hem us in, but another body was thrown out of the broken window, and that got their attention.
We were away out into the city ten seconds later.
*****
We drove in silence for a while, and I let the noise of the engine wash away the past few hours. My mind was full of images of blood and mayhem, but, most of all, of Mark Turner's empty, staring eyes.
He'd come to me for help. Now he was most likely going to spend a long time in a hospital, maybe even a psychiatric ward.
Yes, I owed George some favors...
But I owe Mark Turner much more.
"Come on," the driver said after a while. "What was really going on in the pub? It looked like something from a western."
"More like something from a horror movie," I replied. "Seriously, the less you know, the better you'll sleep tonight."
"Sleep? I'm on the night shift tonight, man. If I go to sleep, you get dead." He laughed as if he'd just told the funniest joke in the world.
Maybe he had. I wasn't ready for laughs. Not yet. Not until Mark Turner stopped crying.
And that could be a while.
*****
We headed along Great Western Road past Anniesland, and the traffic lessened as we left the city behind.
This far out Glasgow became suburbia. Neat houses with neat cars outside and neat little people inside, living neat, tidy lives of clockwork regularity.
I wanted to stop the car and run along the manicured driveways, shouting, "Wolf!" But they'd only call out the Neighborhood Watch to have a meeting about it.
For people out here, the Glasgow I knew was a foreign country. They visited it during their working hours, but they only saw what was on the surface, what the city let them see. They didn't remember that all around them was a dark, old lady, brooding and cold. She mostly let herself show at night, in the bars, around the docklands, and in the vast cemeteries which marked where all her children lay sleeping.
Some of them might occasionally catch a glimpse of her, in the face of a drunk, in the hands of a beggar. But they'd soon forget her once safely home and locked into their havens with their soap operas and reality shows and their TV dinners and boxes of Australian wine.
I was never allowed to forget her.
I don't want to forget her.
My mind was wandering, giving me abstracts to consider rather than have to focus on the grim reality of the present.
I forced myself to attention.
"George said something about my gear?" I asked.
"Under your seat," the driver said. "He said you'd need it."
I found a large envelope. It contained return flight tickets from Dublin to St John's Newfoundland, a thousand Canadian dollars, and two hundred Euros.
Thanks George. I owe you another one.
I pocketed the lot in beside my passport.
"Clothes?" I asked.
"There's a case in the boot," the driver said, and went back to watching the road.
We were out of the city completely now, on dark country roads with minimal lighting. A cop car passed us going the other way with sirens blazing. I tensed for a second, until the driver laughed.
"That'll be kids playing silly buggers again. It happens every night out this way."
"Isn't this a bit far out for a Glasgow cabbie?"
He looked sideways at me.
"George's business disnae stop at Anniesland," he said. "And you'll be thankful for that fact tonight."
*****
As we got further out of town I smoked another Camel and started to relax slightly.
"You were on the telly again earlier,"
the driver said. "Well, not you, but your photie."
"I hope it was a bad likeness," I replied.
He laughed. "Well, I kent it was you, so it cannae have been that bad. You've got all the cops in the country looking for you."
"Aye. Between them, and Santa's little helpers I need to lie low for a while."
He looked at me quizzically, but I wasn't in the mood to elaborate.
We drove the rest of the way in silence.
He left me on a dockside in the dark with only a battered suitcase for company.
*****
I looked both ways along the dock. The Clyde has more than its fair share of disused dockyards. At one time, the cream of the seas was built along these shores-ocean liners, high-masted frigates, battleships and submarines. You name it...they'd all been launched along this stretch of water at one time or another.
Now all we have left is skeletons and ghosts, rusting cranes jutting skywards on empty piers, and rotting docks sinking slowly into ever-growing mud banks.
This far downriver you got a slightly better class of dock, a place where yacht builders to the gentry rubbed shoulders with high-end fishing boats. But even that was now a bygone era, and all I had for company was gently lapping water and soft moonlight.
Well, Derek, this is another fine mess you've gotten yourself into.
"Derek Adams?" a voice called from below me.
I walked to the side of the dock and looked down onto a small powerboat. "That's me," I said.
A wizened old man looked up at me. He looked like Popeye...if Popeye had lived to be eighty and had gone to seed.
I moved to lower myself down to the boat.
"Hold yer horses, youngster," he said. "What's the password?"
"There is no fucking password," I replied.
"Aye. That's what I was told as well," he said and smiled. "Come on down, son. There's some coffee on the stove and a bottle of malt in the cupboard."
"Home sweet home," I replied.
I passed down the suitcase and climbed down beside him.
He looked me up and down.
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