Barking

by Tom Holt

  They were out on the street now, running briskly along the pavement, close in to the buildings, where there was a decent bit of shadow. Of course, he could see perfectly in this light, and what he couldn’t see he could smell. It was as though he was replaying in his mind CCTV footage of everybody and everything that had passed that way since it rained last, on a huge bank of monitors that allowed him to watch every minute of every day simultaneously. Every detail, apart from a few trivial things that only the eye could record, was sharp: age, sex, height, weight, diet, lifestyle, everything you really needed to know about people, as opposed to their mere appearance. He’d read somewhere about some scientific tests that proved that the difference between beauty and ugliness was generally no more than twenty-five thousandths of an inch, the breadth of a propelling-pencil lead. Move the eyes that much closer together, or widen the mouth, or exaggerate the uplift of the nosetip, and drop-dead gorgeous turns into water-buffalo’s-arse ugly; as total and decisive a change as, say, that between man and wolf. Smells don’t deceive the way looks do. They aren’t susceptible to subtle advocacy, the manipulative persuasion of the deceitful lawyers of the mind that make us want to like pretty people and hate ugly ones.

  Luke had stopped, for no apparent reason. He lowered his head and snapped at something on the ground. It proved to be the inset handle of a manhole cover. He got his teeth hooked round it and began to pull, his back arched, feet thrusting at the ground for leverage. The cover lifted, then rolled back as he released it and it fell with a clang. Luke looked up, scanned the area for potential threats and witnesses, and jumped down into the hole.

  That’s dangerous, Duncan thought; I can’t jump that far, I’ll hurt - No, you won’t. The answer was entirely satisfactory and when his turn came he jumped into the dark hole without a moment’s hesitation.

  He landed hard and skidded a few inches, thinking piece of cake. Then he followed the others. It was darker, sure, but there was still plenty of light. The overwhelming strength and richness of the smells was rather disconcerting; a bit like an art gallery with the pictures hung much too close together. The sheer complexity of the tones of decay made him long to stop and drink them in, tracing each one, like unravelling a huge tangle. Don’t dawdle. He quickened his pace to a smart trot, following the tail in front until the pack broke into a wonderful, exhilarating run. He’d have been quite happy if it had lasted for ever, and of course his sense of time had changed along with everything else - no more seconds, minutes or hours, just blissfully elastic moments that contained as much as you cared to cram into them. You could live the rest of your life in the glory of one second breathing in a new scent; it could expand to crowd out the hour of standing motionless that followed, or squash down into nothing to make way for the next scent or sight or sound. He needn’t have worried after all. This night could be the whole of his life, if he wanted it to.

  After a while Luke stopped, sniffed, jumped up suddenly and braced his front legs against a spot on the roof. It gave way, and orange light flooded into the tunnel. Luke sprang up into the light and vanished; the others followed. This time, Duncan didn’t even bother to think I can’t jump that high as he peered up at the lip of the manhole. If the others could do it, so could he. He jumped, only just made it, scrabbled with his paws until he’d got his balance, and looked round.

  It could have been a park: too big for a city garden, and they hadn’t run for long enough to get out into open country. The grass he stood on was politely short, and the trees carefully arranged, like decorations on a cake. He saw Luke throw back his head and howl. For ten seconds or so the sound filled the world; then a short tense silence, followed by a distant echo - no, very slightly different. A reply. And, since there aren’t any natural wolves in Britain any more, that could only mean another pack of Us, a long way away. He remembered what Luke had said, about territories and boundaries, some other gang whose turf covered Kew, or was it Sutton? Hearing them, however, was rather different to hearing about them. It was as though he was the first man on Mars, and someone had stopped him as he vaulted from his landing module and asked to see his passport.

  Just letting them know we’re here. A vague intonation he couldn’t quite isolate told him the voice in his head was Pete’s. He understood. The two packs bore each other no ill will, but if they happened to meet, they’d have no choice but to fight it out until one or the other was annihilated. Perfectly reasonable, like China getting stressy if the USA violated its airspace. You can understand most things, even nuclear war, when you’re a wolf.

  Luke was sniffing again. He was the nose of the pack, sniffing on behalf of all of them. He turned his head and the other five heads moved with his; Duncan felt his tail bristle, and although he didn’t know why, he understood that he didn’t need to, so long as Luke did. It briefly crossed his mind that at some point in the recent past he’d contemplated rebellion - leaving the pack, going to New Mexico or somewhere equally improbable. He could have been angry with himself if his understanding wasn’t so perfect. Silly human. Clueless.

  Luke had started to run and, as he followed, Duncan caught the scent. At once it filled him, as though he was an engine filled with petrol. With a scent to follow, he was alive.

  Fox; splendid. But it didn’t last. He’d barely warmed up his lungs when Luke stopped, jumped up on his hind legs, twirled round in a circle, dropped down to all fours and growled horribly. Duncan realised they were standing on a tarmac road; Luke was dancing round the body of something, and the scents told the story. Some idiot car-driver had run their fox over, and it was lying on the kerb, all flat and useless, like a burst balloon. Stupid, pointless waste; the frustration was almost more than he could bear, for about five seconds. Then Luke started running again, and he’d forgotten all about it.

  Cat. Cat? Thought we didn’t do cats. Yes, but time’s getting on, can’t be all night looking, must chase something. The pursuit of happiness, remember? That made sense. Besides, there had to be some justification for cats, or else a person could lose faith in the universe.

  It was a big, fat, black moggy, and Duncan heard it clearly: badbadbadbad, its funny little brain broadcast as it scampered away from them. Luke stretched his back and shoulders into an impossibly long stride, his nose almost brushing the cat’s absurdly fluffy tail; but then the cat jumped, landed on the side of a tree and ran straight up it. The pack stopped, slamming into thin air as if hitting a wall. There was the cat, simply reeking of delicious fear, but it was eight feet off the ground. Pete was trying to climb the tree, jumping with his back legs, scrabbling with his front paws, his jaws snapping like castanets. Micky was running round the tree in a tight circle, as if he couldn’t believe the chase was over. Duncan could hear the cat mewing, Nyanyanyanya, and caught himself leaping at it like a dolphin. For a split second he hung in the air, just long enough to close his jaws on a patch of air no more than six inches from the fucking cat’s fucking tail—He landed on all fours and tensed his legs to jump again, so full of anger that he believed for a moment that it would float him off the stupid, gravity-ridden ground.

  Leave it, Luke commanded. It was as though a valve had opened. Duncan felt his ears go back and his tail wag. Good effort, though. That made him glow; praise from the pack leader, like having his tummy rubbed, pure joy. He let out a short, sharp bark, like a stick breaking. Something Jenny Sidmouth had said once came back to him, hard and fast as a returning lunar module: it’s only when you start thinking as a part of the team that you can really call yourself a lawyer.

  The cat was still taunting them, but it didn’t matter now. He understood; by climbing a tree, cheating, the cat had admitted its basic and incorrigible inferiority. Besides, they didn’t do cats. Wouldn’t dirty our teeth on a cat. They climb trees, after all. Might just as well chase squirrels.

  Then Luke howled again. There was a slight but all-important difference about this howl: not command, not authority, but a deep, unquenchable longing for something that could never
be attained. Duncan didn’t need to sniff. This wasn’t a scent you had to hunt out of the air. It was itself a predator.

  Leave it, Luke ordered, and Duncan thought, quite right. Hadn’t he had one lucky escape already, the night of his first run with the Ferris Gang, when he’d actually seen it on the railway lines? The scent flooded all his senses, and he could see it perfectly, as though it was there in front of him: the white unicorn, with silver hooves and a golden horn. He understood without even having to think. Chasing the unicorn while in human form was stupid and dangerous, but chasing it as a wolf would undoubtedly be fatal. A human being would probably pass out and fall over, just this side of terminal exhaustion; a wolf would keep going until his heart stopped and his brain burst.

  Do you know why there’re no wolves in Britain any more? Luke was talking, just to him. They’ll tell you it was humans, hunting them to extinction. Bollocks. The truth is, they ran themselves to death, following Her. That’s what happened to—Pause; the data stream broke up for a moment. Well, anyway. Just leave it, all right?

  He could feel the pain in Luke’s mind, of course. Everything he’d ever wanted, everything he would ever want, lay at the end of that scent trail. Duncan understood, and a terrible desire to catch the unicorn for him ripped into him like claws. Luke couldn’t go, because the pack needed him; if he ran himself to death they’d be leaderless, a living body with a dead brain. But they could spare me, Duncan thought; they managed all right without me before, and if I could catch her—

  No. Leave it. Heel. Bugger this for a game of soldiers, let’s go on up the bypass and chase lorries.

  For a few seconds, Duncan understood. The unicorn was out of bounds. Chasing lorries was almost as good, since they’d have a bloody good run and scare some stupid human shitless without the embarrassment and consequences of a genuine kill. It was a neatly crafted human-wolf compromise, very middle-way and Liberal Democrat, and it was what they always did under the circumstances, even though it wasn’t what any of them really wanted—

  In which case, Duncan thought, why do it?

  The pack stopped dead in its tracks. Someone growled, almost certainly Micky; whereas from Pete he felt a great and focused sadness, like that you’d experienced on being shown the draft of your own obituary for your approval.

  Sorry, Duncan thought; he was thinking aloud, of course, because he had no choice. It was frightening, but liberating as well. Sorry, Luke, but actually that thought came from you. I was just agreeing with you, that’s all.

  Well, don’t.

  But you’re right. Why the hell should we have to go chasing stupid lorries, when She’s out there? So, maybe we’ll all die, so what? Where’s the point in staying alive if we can’t chase the stuff that’s worth chasing? I wouldn’t have dared (he added quickly, as the pack started to growl), only it’s what you were thinking. Wasn’t it?

  Silence; not just outside, but in his head, too. It went on so long that Duncan was scared he’d gone deaf, physically and (immeasurably worse) mentally. Then Luke said: How did you know that?

  Duncan knew that the others couldn’t hear them. They were standing perfectly still, ears pricked up, tails motionless, alert and deeply disturbed. They hated him, of course.

  I heard you, he replied.

  You weren’t supposed to.

  Oh. Sorry.

  Luke was staring at him. You shouldn’t be able to.

  Really? I didn’t mean to, honest. I mean, I can’t help hearing what I hear. It’s not like I did it on purpose.

  Are you challenging me?

  Effete urban westerners in the twenty-first century don’t really know what fear means. They think they get scared when they nearly drive into a parked car, or come within an inch of being flattened by a breeze-block falling off a scaffolding tower. They think a sudden sharp twist in the guts and not being able to breathe for ten seconds or so is fear; which is like looking at a forty-watt bulb and telling yourself you’re staring directly at the sun.

  No, of course not, you know I’m not. Come on, Luke, you can read my mind, you’d know if I was—

  Maybe. But maybe I would and you wouldn’t.

  Luke was coming towards him. His ears were back and his tail was down; his jaws were open. As he approached, Duncan remembered a long-forgotten RE lesson at school, when they’d been taught about how Lucifer and the fallen angels rebelled against God. At the time he remembered he’d thought, how stupid can you get? What part of omnipotent didn’t they understand? And what utter plonkers they must have felt, when they realised what they’d done.

  So. Luke was so close he could feel the heat of his breath. You’re not challenging me, then.

  No, really. Really really.

  (He was sitting in something wet. Three guesses.)

  That’s all right, then.

  Four more seconds of concentrated staring; then Luke broke eye contact and walked away. It was wonderful to be alive, Duncan realised; and the thought that he’d have been prepared to risk this amazing thing called life just to chase some stupid horse with a spike on its nose seemed so ludicrous that he couldn’t understand it. But it hadn’t just been fear of death. What had scared him was fear of—

  Sin? The ultimate crime, rebellion against the alpha; worse than death. Worse, like murder’s worse than parking on a double yellow. To think that he’d apparently come within an ace of the biggest Thou-shalt-not of all; he was shaking all over, and the cold was unbearable.

  But you did think it. Really you did.

  I know. Just . . . Don’t keep on about it, all right?

  Duncan stopped trembling. The others were still looking at him, but they didn’t hate him any more. In fact, as far as they were concerned, something may or may not have happened, but if it had, they’d forgotten all about it. Why are we all standing about here like prunes? Kevin asked. Let’s go and chase lorries, like Luke said.

  So they trotted down the road until they came to the bypass. As luck would have it, there was no traffic to be seen, but the rumble of approaching wheels hummed up through the tarmac. Micky lifted his head, suddenly tense. The others did the same, all except Luke; he was rubbing behind his ear with a freshly licked paw.

  All right, yes, it’s pointless. But at least it’s running. You want to go back to the office and chase a rubber ball round the closed file store till daybreak?

  Not a lot in it, Duncan thought. And the same goes for chasing cats. Or foxes, for that matter. You know that better than I do. You were the one who put it into my mind.

  Did I? I wouldn’t know.

  Having a lie inside his mind was like trying to swallow a fir cone. You did, you know you did.

  Maybe. But if I’d known you could hear me, maybe I’d have kept my head shut.

  Headlights. Kevin barked; Clive was making that yappy, whimpering noise that Duncan’s Aunt Chrissy’s red setter used to make when it was begging at table. This is silly, Duncan thought, grown men getting frantic at the prospect of running behind a petrol tanker. And so what if you can all hear me, I don’t care.

  They can’t. I can. Now shut up.

  Mind you, he thought, as the tanker blasted by in a roaring haze of light, noise and stench, for an inanimate object it does have a certain crude allure. Like, it’s big, and—

  The others were off; Luke in front, not just because he was the leader, mostly because he was the strongest and the quickest. Kevin pulled easily ahead of Pete and Micky, but he couldn’t catch Luke - he wanted to, more than anything in the world; the ambition streamed out of him, like oil from a Norton, but he didn’t have the muscle, or the will. Micky next, with the tip of Pete’s snout at his front shoulder - issues between those two, Duncan realised: they keep them down all the rest of the time, but tonight they can’t quite manage it - then Clive, resigned to bringing up the rear. Then—

  Then nobody. It was only when Duncan saw the white of Clive’s tail vanishing into the dark that he noticed that he himself hadn’t moved. For a moment he was stunne
d. What had got into him? Why was he sitting there, when the chase was on and the pack was committed? The answer was simple. He hadn’t felt the tug, like a hook in a fish’s lip. Lorries didn’t cut it for him after all. There was no passion, no desperate need to catch and reduce into possession. If he wanted a lorry, he realised, he’d go to a Volvo dealer and buy one.

  Something occurred to him and he froze. He couldn’t hear the others’ thoughts. Maybe they’d already run out of range, or perhaps it was his blatant act of defiance. Whatever it was, it had cut him off from the pack. He was alone.

  Instinct prepared a wave of terror to flood his mind, but it refused to break. Free will, he thought, and his jowls contorted into a grin. Free will: not a concept a lawyer could ever come to terms with. Lawyers are pack animals too; unless followed by the words with every house purchase, the phrase has no meaning for them. It’s a contradiction in terms, like the pursuit of what’s-its-name, thingy. The prosecution of happiness, now; that was perfectly reasonable. But to chase something you could never hope to catch—

  Like a lorry. Or, come to that, a unicorn.

  Even as Duncan’s mind selected the word, the scent hit him. It was close, fresh; it was coming towards him. He froze. Something told him he wasn’t the only predator out hunting on the bypass that night. Or, come to that, the most dangerous.

  He looked up, and she was there. Light from a distant dot-matrix sign shimmered on her white coat, her silver hooves, the ludicrous and impossible horn in the middle of her forehead. She was standing perfectly still, looking at him with huge eyes, big, round and as red as blood.

  He closed his own eyes, but it made no difference. Her scent, the sound of her rapid breathing, the feel of her pulse, practically pounding up through the asphalt into the soles of his feet. The only sense lacking was taste - her blood, in his mouth, on his tongue, the most delicious thing. Desperately he tried to hear her mind; he found it, but it was locked. He knew that if she moved, so much as a shiver, he’d be lost. Please, he begged her, please don’t run. Just stay exactly where you are until dawn, when I can get out of this stupid dog and back into me—