by Ian Jarvis
‘Er, a Labrador.’
‘Are you out of your mind?’ gasped the old man. The wolf peered at him with glowing amber eyes and he clenched his buttocks as his bowel threatened evacuation. ‘That’s no Labrador.’
‘What do you mean?’ Watson groped Rex’s face, clumsily poking him in the eye. ‘What have they given me here? No wonder people pay for private health care.’
The man threw the ticket across the counter and slammed the window shut.
‘Thanks.’ Watson pretended to fumble for it and hurriedly led the wolf to the train. ‘Come on, Rexy. There’s a good boy.’
They headed to the first carriage behind the engine, climbed the step and slammed the door, Watson quickly walking the wolf along the central aisle. The carriage was fairly empty for this late hour on a Friday evening and he chose a vacant seat well away from his fellow passengers.
‘We made it,’ he whispered, stroking Rex.
The wolf eyed him curiously. ‘What are you doing?’ he growled quietly through clenched razor teeth.
‘Trying to blend in,’ he murmured. ‘Some of the passengers almost shat themselves when you walked past. I’m proving you’re a nice guide doggie. Just a big softie.’
The screeching of tyres drew him to the window. Range Rovers had pulled up outside the little station and Gruner ran through the entrance arch. Two of his security team accompanied him, followed by Lafont and a pair of grey-suited men in bowler hats.
‘Well...’ drawled Watson, turning from the carriage window. ‘I’m sitting here stroking a werewolf, but this shit has now officially entered the Twilight Zone. Laurel and Hardy are about to board the train.’
Chapter 30
Colonel Adler kept her automatic trained on Quist as she poured two whiskies. ‘So you’re telling me Ligeia is a Siren?’ she said, incredulous. ‘Some mythical creature from Greek legend?’
‘Hardly mythical,’ said Quist. He sat at the computer reading about the Lamarai, his eyes widening as he arrived at a paragraph on the legendary Mesopotamian race named the Askari. ‘Elva mentioned this name and I remembered what they were.’
‘I take it she mentioned this when she released you? I should have had her watched, but I viewed her as an empty-headed mute. It seems even I make mistakes.’
‘You should be thankful she did let us out and I was able to learn this. I knew I’d read about the Lamarai before and here are all the details.’
‘Ancient scream demons?’ said Adler, offering him a glass of single malt and reading the screen. ‘This is ludicrous. You honestly think she’s some immortal creature that’s existed through the centuries?’
‘I’m certain she’s descended from them, so who knows how old she truly is?’ Quist sipped the drink. ‘I’m sure it can’t be too difficult to believe. After all, your silver bullets suggest that you’re quite comfortable with the idea of werewolves.’
Laughing quietly, Adler tugged up her sleeve to check her arm. The bite wound had completely vanished.
‘Problem?’ asked Quist.
‘Oh, no.’ Adler raised her drink in a triumphant toast. ‘No problem whatsoever. I know Rex Grant is a werewolf. The Padre tells me he picks up identical feelings from you, so I assume you are too?’
‘We’re discussing a different supernatural creature,’ said Quist, tartly. ‘One which is far more pertinent right now. Sirens were misunderstood. They weren’t evil, as portrayed in the ancient myths, and they didn’t intentionally draw sailors to their deaths. They simply sang and people were attracted. Unfortunately, they had a love of water and a habit of sitting on rocks beside it, which wasn’t particularly good news for passing boats.’
‘She certainly has an affinity with water.’ Adler looked down onto the moat through the huge window, then gesturing to the couch, she settled herself in an armchair. ‘Come and sit.’
Quist nodded to the gun. ‘How could I refuse such hospitality?’
‘Ligeia seems unaware of what you’re telling me, so I don’t want her hearing it. Such things could upset her and she needs to concentrate on tonight and the week ahead.’
‘But you don’t realise the danger,’ said Quist, sitting on the couch. ‘Fortunately, I remembered the legends and that website confirms it. Sirens had two vocal abilities. The one you’re familiar with, which enchants, but there’s another voice which they use for defence. They have a much darker vocal power that harms humans. They’re able to kill.’
The Colonel shrugged. ‘If that’s true, she’s never used such an ability.’
‘Then, so far, you’ve been lucky. If Ligeia feels threatened, the risk to the people around her is very real, especially her audience at these concerts. Can you imagine what she could do with a microphone and amplification system?’
‘I’ve seen no evidence of this lethal voice and I certainly won’t be altering any plans based on the word of a stranger and some mythology website.’
‘Is money all you care about?’
‘Money and power.’ A surge of exhilaration flowed through Adler at the thought of her newly acquired lupine potential. ‘I’ve always enjoyed power. I acquired a taste for it in the military and I’m starting to like it even more.’
‘You said you were in the German army and that surname...’
‘My parents were German, but I was born and educated in Brazil.’
‘Germans living in Brazil? Looking at you, I’d say you were born in the seventies. That suggests certain things to me.’
‘I’m sure it does.’ The Colonel smiled. ‘Adler is my mother’s name. My father’s name carries a certain amount of...’ She paused, searching for the correct word, ‘baggage.’
‘Your father’s name?’
‘Mengele.’
‘Ah!’ Quist raised his eyebrows. ‘Not the Mengele? Doctor Joseph Mengele, the universally despised monster of Auschwitz? The twisted scientist who performed unspeakable experiments on people and became known as the Angel of Death?’
‘You know him.’ Taking a sip of whisky, Adler brightened and crossed her legs. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have my father’s scientific brain.’
‘I imagine he must be a difficult role model to measure up to.’
She grinned at the sarcastic tone. ‘I’ve made up for it in other ways. My time in the military taught me a great deal about man management and I’ve always had a shrewd business sense. I believe my father would be proud of my accomplishments.’
‘If I remember my history, Mengele had two wives, didn’t he?’
‘He divorced and married his brother’s wife, but my mother appeared much later, a few years before his untimely death. She was a German doctor of biochemistry researching South American toxins and she assisted in his experiments. With her help, he perfected techniques for changing facial features using Paraguayan fish, poisonous frogs and jungle plants. The plan was to alter his appearance and that of his German friends living out there, but in 1979 he accidentally drowned. A great loss as he was a brilliant man.’
‘Yes.’ Quist gave a sham whistle of respect. ‘And to think history has labelled him a monster.’
Again, Adler ignored the sarcasm. ‘My mother took me back to Germany. I have all his research and we have a physician here who puts it to good use. Doctor Roylott could do wonders with that large nose of yours.’
‘I rather doubt it.’
Since the werewolf bite, Quist had stayed exactly the same. Fortunately he’d shaved that particular day, otherwise, apart from the occasional brief period when fashion decreed that men should sport designer stubble, he’d have looked remarkably scruffy over the past two centuries.
‘I brought in people to keep Ligeia happy,’ said Adler. ‘The mute girl Elva, for example, but Doctor Roylott helped with the other additions to our entourage. Ligeia likes Laurel and Hardy and Roylott saw a r
esemblance to Hardy in Alistair Ramson. The police caught him in France and we intercepted the officers who were returning him to Britain. Ramson was only too willing to exchange a fugitive life for luxury as our unorthodox look-alike.’
‘I met him briefly. He called on us in the menagerie. Stan Laurel was with him.’
‘That’s right. I had Roylott search through prison computer records for a Laurel and Sebastian Moran was perfect.’
‘Ah, is that who it was? Moran, the cannibal murderer.’
‘It’s important to get the correct bone structure to ensure no surgery is needed. Just our revolutionary procedure using drug injections. We sprang Moran on his prison journey to Broadmoor.’
‘Laurel and Hardy.’ Quist nodded slowly. ‘Ligeia must be overjoyed.’
‘Indeed.’ Adler smiled at his obvious disgust. ‘We might give her a set of Marx Brothers next.’
‘I understand Ramson cuts a letter R into his victims?’
‘Yes, with a blade weapon he devised himself.
‘Why did he kill Charlotte Michie in Edinburgh?’
‘He’s a killer, Mister Quist. They aren’t exactly stable. Two of our cleaning staff here met with the same fate.’
‘So you cover up these inconvenient murders?’ snarled Quist. ‘You allowed Rex to take the blame for the Edinburgh death and kidnapped him to appease Ligeia. How long do you expect to get away with all this?’
‘I haven’t done too badly so far. You’d be surprised at the sort of things you can get away with when enormous amounts of money are involved. Anyone can be bought and paid to look the other way, including the police.’
Quist glared at the woman. ‘So how did you come to be Ligeia’s...’ He paused. ‘I was going to say manager, but owner would be more appropriate, wouldn’t it?’
‘Perhaps so.’ Adler laughed. ‘I was the head of Red Globe Security and we were in the Balkans assisting with the unrest there last year. We saw her singing in a bar and the audience were entranced; so were my men. I ordered them away, but they refused. I even punched one and broke his nose and they still didn’t move. That’s when I realised she was special and...’
‘And you could profit from her.’
‘Absolutely. A man had brought her to the town from one of the hill villages where she’d been living. We had an enlightening chat with him and he confirmed she had some sort of power. My Padre confirmed it was supernatural.’
‘This will be your voodoo practitioner?’
She nodded and turned to the door as her Entertainment Manager walked in,
‘Oh, er, right,’ said Guevara, seeing the Colonel’s gun trained on Quist. ‘If this is a bad time, I can come back when...’
‘Not at all,’ said Adler. ‘Shane, this is Bernard Quist. Shane Guevara here sees to the commercial side of the business.’
‘Shane Guevara?’ repeated Quist, frowning.
‘It turns out Ligeia is a Siren,’ said Adler. ‘You know, like in the Greek myths.’
Guevara laughed. ‘What?’
‘She’s unbelievably dangerous,’ said Quist. ‘If this woman won’t listen to my warnings, then maybe you will. Sirens have two songs. The one that enchants and another that harms people.’
‘But we have the ear implants...’ began Guevara.
‘The audience don’t,’ snapped Quist. ‘If anything should go wrong...’
‘It won’t,’ said Adler. ‘And if it does, believe me, I can live with the guilt.’
‘I believe you,’ said Quist, fuming.
Chapter 31
The little steam engine pulled out of the station and headed into the woodland of Richmond Park, chugging slowly along the western edge of the vast expanse.
‘Shit,’ stammered Watson. Frightened and shaking, he turned from the train window and stashed his sunglasses in a pocket. ‘Three of them got on the last carriage: Laurel and Hardy and some black guy. They’re obviously searching the train. What the hell are we going to do?’
‘The black one is the witchdoctor Lafont,’ whispered Rex, keeping his head low behind the seat to spare fellow passengers the bizarre sight of a talking wolf. ‘There are only three carriages, so it isn’t going to take them long.’
‘The lavatory,’ hissed Watson, jumping up and tugging at Rex’s makeshift guide dog harness. ‘Come on, quick. There’s nowhere else to hide.’
The toilet was situated at the end of the car in the entrance area just behind the steam engine. Watson closed the aisle door behind them as Lafont opened the door at the opposite end.
‘Fuck, they’re here already.’ The teenager ducked into the cubicle with the huge wolf and locked the door, gazing in horror at the razor fangs close-up. He gave a nervous grin. ‘This is the second time tonight we’ve been alone in a public toilet. We really have to stop this.’
‘How the hell did they know we’re on board?’ growled the wolf.
‘They must have tracked the car. They probably don’t know we’re here, but they’re making sure.’
‘Well, they’re bound to check in here.’ Rex slid open the window and shoved out his head, looking around. ‘We have to hurry.’
‘What are you doing?’ Watson watched the wolf climb out, digging its talons into the carriage coachwork for purchase. ‘It isn’t going too fast. We could maybe jump into the bushes and...’
His words ended in a terrified whimper as a clawed hand reached in and dragged him out, hoisting him up onto the carriage roof. Two seconds later, the toilet door was kicked in and they heard the sound of someone looking through the window.
‘Empty,’ announced a male voice. ‘If there was anyone in here, they must have jumped.’
‘The door was locked,’ said Lafont’s voice. ‘Someone must have been inside, but they’re no longer on the train. I’ll radio it in.’
The window was slammed shut and Watson sighed with relief.
‘Climbing up here was a brilliant idea,’ he whispered. ‘We seem to be okay for now, but let’s hope there are no low bridges.’
‘That was Oliver Hardy at the window,’ growled Rex. He dug his talons into the roof’s metal sheeting to ensure he didn’t slide off and the teenager clung to his furry bulk. ‘I recognised the voice. That’s the fat bastard who murdered Charlotte in Scotland.’
‘We met Laurel and Hardy earlier,’ said Watson. ‘Cyrano reckons Hardy is some fugitive serial killer called Alistair Ramson.’
‘He’s right.’ Trembling with anger, the wolf bared its teeth. ‘Laurel is an escaped killer too and Adler altered their faces. Hardy has a long blade on a spring hidden up his sleeve. Believe me, it’s really sharp; he stabbed me with it. He also used it on my friend and he’s going to pay for that. He’s going to fucking pay.’
‘Er, okay.’ Watson eyed the glistening fangs and wished he had something to hold onto that was a little less volatile and lethal. ‘Cyrano was telling me you have a special tune that you concentrate on to keep your...’ He coughed nervously. ‘Your dark lupine urges at bay. What is it?’
‘That’s kind of personal,’ snarled the wolf. ‘It’s my song.’
‘Whatever.’ The teenager glanced up at the full moon. ‘I just hope you’re singing it in your head when I’m around.’
The slow train reduced speed even more on a sharp bend where the line curled to run parallel with the A308 through the edge of the parkland. A man walked his dog on a leash in the trees, both owner and spaniel staring open-mouthed at the moonlit wolf and black youth sitting on the carriage roof. Watson smiled sheepishly and Rex raised his paw in an embarrassed wave. Mesmerised, the man waved back dazedly as the dog defecated on his shoes.
‘When the train stops, Adler’s men will get off,’ said Watson. ‘We can’t be sitting out in the open when that happens.’
‘No, we’ll jump down
before the station,’ said Rex. ‘Then we’ll hide until they’ve gone, cross over to the main line and grab the first train into the city. It’ll be safe enough when we reach my friend’s apartment and I can ring McNulty in Edinburgh from there. His brother is in the police and he knows me. I’ll explain everything about Ramson, Adler and the kidnap and he’ll be able to pull the right strings and sort this out.’
The train vanished under a road, chugging through a tunnel that connected Richmond Park to Wimbledon Common.
‘We met Gordon McNulty,’ said Watson. ‘We headed straight to Edinburgh to help you as soon as we found out about the murder and your disappearance.’
‘Really?’ the wolf wagged its tail. ‘Hey, thanks.’
‘What are friends for?’
‘You didn’t initially suspect I might have killed her? I mean, it was the full moon, so it can’t have looked good when you heard about...’
‘Are you kidding? Not even for a second.’ Watson recalled how he’d pictured a savaged corpse with a blood-soaked furry fuckwit in sunglasses standing over it. ‘No, we both knew there wasn’t a chance in hell of that.’
‘Well, that’s really heart-warming to know. Thanks again.’
‘McNulty’s brother sounds like a brilliant idea. It’s pointless trying to talk to the local cops. They’d take some convincing that a pop star’s management team were capable of murder and kidnap.’
Rex gritted his huge teeth, wondering how the story of Charlotte’s death and the goings on at Charlington Hall would play out with the authorities. If his bite had worked on Adler, she wouldn’t be mentioning his lycanthropy secret to anyone. They now shared the same hairy skeleton in the closet and she’d probably flee from any police investigation and vanish somewhere with her wealth. The problem was, there was a good chance he’d turned a powerful sociopathic mercenary into a supernatural monster and he was responsible for anyone she killed. Knowing this crazy bitch, she wouldn’t be sticking to any vegan diets and humming Barry Manilow songs when she felt tetchy. A surge of fury shook his body and he made a futile effort to concentrate on his personal melody.
