The Silver Cage

by Mathilde Madden

  Alfie looked at her. He couldn’t speak. He felt so far from sensational. He was so weak.

  ‘Of course, moon is coming. I know you feel it. I’ll have to take you from the cage then. Let you change. And then you’ll know. Feel the power of the Ancient Beasts. The fully conscious wolf. Not an animal, an unearthly creature. You’ll have your army by then. Be my consort. You’ll thank me for all I’ve done.’

  Alfie was still just looking at her. He felt like he wasn’t really in his body. He was up on the ceiling, disjoined. Watching her from afar, not really here.

  ‘Shit,’ Sabrina shouted. And she sprang, rushed across the cellar, unlocked and hauled open the door. She grabbed Alfie by the shoulders and shook him. ‘Divinia, we’re losing him.’

  Divinia was still standing by the doorway. ‘Oh, Sabby, he can’t die. He’s a werewolf.’

  ‘He can still slip away from us. Catatonia. Insanity. Fuck!’

  Divinia shook her head. ‘That won’t make any difference. The magic will still work. I can still take his powers.’

  ‘You need him for the line,’ Sabrina said. ‘Your thrall is strongest over him. Your heir. You need him or you’ll never hold control. Even with the spell. What is the use of creating a race of all-powerful creatures if you can’t command them?’

  Alfie saw Divinia’s eyes light with a kind of mania, but the scene in front of him was fading away.

  ‘Woah, it’s batman!’ Blake cried as he flung open the passenger-side door of the black SUV. Over his shoulder Iris saw Vikram scream and flatten himself against his tinted window on the driver’s side, panting and staring wide-eyed at the stream of sunlight.

  ‘Fuck, mate,’ Vikram shouted. ‘That stuff burns me.’

  ‘Yeah. I know. Must be terrible for you.’

  ‘Just be more fucking careful,’ Vikram said sulkily as he braced himself, while Blake climbed into the SUV, hunching up so Iris could squeeze in next to him. ‘Sorry,’ Blake said patting Vikram’s thigh. ‘I didn’t know you were in here.’

  Iris made a scoffing noise as she leant out and pulled the SUV door closed, seeing Vikram relax. ‘I told you he was. Only about a minute ago,’ she muttered.

  Blake didn’t really respond. He just made a soft sort of noise like, hmm, then said, ‘You know, Iris, I still can’t believe you’re fucking a vamp.’

  Iris rolled her eyes as Vikram started the engine and said, ‘Where are we going? Did you figure it out?’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Iris. ‘We need to go to a house off St Clements. I’ll give you directions. Just get on to the main road.’ She turned back to Blake. ‘I’m not really fucking –’

  ‘I mean,’ Blake interrupted, ‘what do you call someone who is a bloodfucker and a sniffer. It’s bizarre, Iris.’

  ‘Well, what do we call you?’ Iris snapped. ‘Witch fucker?’

  ‘Witches are humans, Iris. There’s nothing strange about my relationships. You know what would interest you, Iris? I’ve got some books somewhere among the ones that bitch stole about some experiments they did in less enlightened times. They took vamps and got lycs to bite them. Or vice versa. You know. Cross-breeding. Most of them died, although there are rumours about . . .’ Blake tailed off.

  ‘Oh, God, Blake, will you please drop it,’ Iris said, then directed Vikram to turn left on to Marston Ferry Road.

  Vikram did as she asked, then said, ‘Rumours about what, Blake?’

  ‘Huh?’ said Blake. ‘Oh. Oh right. Nothing.’

  44

  ‘OH, HI. I wondered if anyone would ever come and see me,’ said a familiar dark confident voice.

  Alfie sat up. He was . . . Where was he? Nowhere. A world of white and wispy grey. Even the ground he was sitting on didn’t appear to be ground at all. ‘Lilith?’

  ‘Hey. Alfie, right? We’ve met once before. Say did you ever think about that modelling work offer?’

  ‘Um, not really.’ Lilith was sitting right next to Alfie. She was wearing a tight, fitted black suit. The fabric of the jacket and short skirt was quilted and tweedy with oversized gold buttons. She wore sheer black stockings and gold high heels.

  Alfie was naked. ‘Are we . . .? Where are we? God, this is like being inside a cloud.’

  Lilith swung her legs that dangled in front of her as if she was perched on an invisible ledge. ‘Yeah. If you want. I mean, obviously, we’re not. That would be crazy. Inside a cloud! We’re, er, well, somewhere in your mind. Or my mind. Best think of it as your mind.’

  ‘And you’re what? A figment of my imagination? ’Cause I can’t see why I would imagine you. I hardly know you.’

  ‘You’re not imagining me. Your imagination doesn’t have the capability to dream up a fabulous suit like this. I’m unconscious too. A spell backfired. That’s why we’re both here. Our, you know . . .’ Lilith tailed off a second, coughing, and in the middle of the coughing seemed to say ‘souls’, then she ahemmed a little more and continued. ‘Uh, yes, those, are not in our bodies. So we’ve ended up here. Does that make any more sense?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Well, OK then. We’re inside a cloud.’

  Alfie laughed. ‘Oh, good. I thought so.’

  ‘How’s your hand?’

  Alfie lifted his right hand, which was covered in blood. Two of the fingers seemed to be at strange angles. They both looked at it like it was some kind of alien creature. ‘Hmm,’ said Lilith. ‘That’ll take some fixing.’

  ‘If someone showed that to me, I’d say it was an amputation.’ Alfie said calmly.

  ‘Really. You could be right.’

  ‘My balls hurt far more though. My balls and my cock.’

  Lilith glanced down and Alfie spread his legs for her, wincing. Alfie’s genitals looked pretty normal. Lilith bent her head and inspected them. Then she reached out, grabbed his cock and squeezed it gently. Alfie moaned. ‘Well, let’s hope this isn’t an amputation job too,’ she whispered.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ was all Alfie could manage.

  She caressed his cock a few times. Alfie squirmed.

  ‘You know,’ said Lilith softly, ‘last time you came to see me you were having trouble with sex too. You remember what I did?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Alfie said, his voice cracking as he tried to deal with the burn of her hand on his sensitive cock. ‘You had twenty-seven witches fuck me. You thought it might make me forget about how much I loved Iris.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Lilith whispered. ‘A little tease of mine really. You took them all though. Twenty-seven witches. And here, now, moon coming. You should be OK with this.’

  ‘But she never stops,’ Alfie moaned. ‘I don’t even know how many times she’s made me come today. Over and over. I’ve been begging her. Begging her not to make me come. Can you imagine that? But she won’t listen.’

  ‘She wants to make a potion of your seed, Alfie. She wants to make all wolves like you, able to change practically at will. Lycans are so vulnerable. Not human. Subhuman even, most of the time. Even in your human bodies you’re more like animals with your power struggles and your pack living and your base desires for food and sex. Oh, you’re hard to kill, but really you’re so vulnerable in human society. Living on the fringes, struggling to make ends meet, exploited for sex and strength by all kinds of itinerant humans. But if you could change any time – oh, imagine the power. The respect you’d get then. And if, like you, you could have the kind of clarity and control over your wolf that an Ancient Beast has . . .’

  ‘Can she even do that?’ Alfie said, more evenly this time. Her hand on his cock was starting to feel different. Nice, even.

  ‘Yes. If she manages to make the potion. It’s controlling what she creates that will be the tricky part. But she has a lot of power over wolves. Thrall, line, alpha. She’s like the ultimate alpha. But it’s you that gives that to her.’ Lilith slipped off the invisible ledge they were both sitting on and knelt at Alfie’s feet. ‘You are the only Ancient Beast now. Iris killed them all as you ascended. The power of
a Beast cub to ascend if his sire was killed has always been known but never used before. And then it turned out to be you and you were unstable. That’s a huge amount of power.’ Lilith still had her hands on Alfie’s cock. She gave it a particularly slow and loving stroke, healing. ‘Close to the skin. And then there’s Iris. The bonds between the two of you make you more powerful than ever.’

  ‘Me? Me and Iris? She’s not even a lycan.’

  ‘No. But she’s close enough. It’s woven into her now. Wolf’s woman. Warrior wolf. Oh yes,’ Lilith said and she lowered her head and swallowed Alfie’s cock right down to the root and then up again. She looked up at him. ‘I shouldn’t do this. I only secured a witch’s binding with your friend Blake a few hours ago, but this doesn’t count, does it? What with us being on a non-corporeal plane and all?’

  ‘A non cor – You mean inside a cloud,’ Alfie said dreamily as Lilith sheathed his cock in her throat again. Then he added softly, ‘Blake . . .?’ But coherent thought was leaving him.

  Lilith was a witch. Perhaps that was the best explanation for why this felt so good when it should have been more pain and fire. Or perhaps it was something to do with the non-corporeal inside-a-cloud thing. Alfie, really, was beyond caring.

  Lilith was healing him. He knew that for certain. His balls, which had been so tender and goddamn empty, began to twitch and tighten so pleasurably. He had almost forgotten how good this could feel. The Divine had turned his greatest pleasure, sex, something he had once taken untold risks to pursue, into a torture. But not anymore. He gasped and jerked his hips into her face, moaning as he wondered obliquely if this was OK. She was a witch. But they’d been here before. He’d had his cock in a willing witch’s mouth before.

  He ran his uninjured left hand over his chest, tweaked and flicked one nipple a little and thought, suddenly and overwhelmingly, of Iris. Her hot mouth on his cock. Iris – lost and found and lost again. The first time she’d ever sucked him. In his shared student house, Iris’s hot uncertain mouth. He was slimmer then and so eager. He came so fast, thrusting down her throat, hands in her hair. And with that memory his orgasm began to rise past the point of no return. And even as he hit his peak he realised that, of all the pain Divinia had wrought on him, nothing was as bad as taking him away from Iris.

  Before he knew where he was, Lilith picked up Alfie’s injured hand and brought it to her mouth. He winced as she licked the skin, letting the blue-white semen in her mouth glide over his skin like a balm. It healed him. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. But, as he stared at her mouth, her tongue flickering over his bloody ruined flesh, it re-formed, knitted and healed.

  When Lilith finally pulled her head away to inspect her magical work, Alfie still couldn’t believe it. ‘We should test that works,’ she said softly and got up from the floor, repositioning herself straddling Alfie’s lap. She drew his hand up and under her short stiff designer skirt. He found the wide band of her lace stocking tops, her suspenders and then her hot damp pussy. No underwear.

  Alfie gasped and Lilith leant forwards. ‘Yeah, I know,’ she whispered in his ear. ‘It’s like you’ve died and gone to heaven.’ Then she sat back and looked at him.

  Alfie knew his mouth was half open. ‘But I haven’t . . .!’

  Lilith just laughed. ‘Oh, of course not, silly puppy.’

  With Lilith’s hands guiding his Alfie slipped his rebuilt fingers inside Lilith. He knew he had big fingers. Big and thick. But Lilith squirmed and thrust, demanding he work three of them inside her.

  Moaning and gasping, her head falling down onto his shoulder, she urged his thumb to find her clit. And then, as he twisted and moved his hand she screamed and sobbed her way to a fast rising wave of orgasm. More than one. The ends of each melting into the start of the next.

  A second later Lilith sat up. ‘Thanks for that, butch.’

  Alfie cleared his throat. ‘Uh. Yeah. Thanks for sorting out my hand.’

  ‘Oh, no problem. It might not cross over. Hard to tell whether magic I do here will still be effective on the other side of the veil. It might not feel better until I wake up.’

  ‘Oh. Do you know when you’re going to wake up?’

  ‘Hard to say. I’ll be there when I’m needed.’ Lilith met Alfie’s eyes with her deep-brown ones. She suddenly looked uncharacteristically soulful. ‘I don’t know when. But you have to go back.’

  ‘I do?’ Alfie felt a sudden surge of nausea. ‘God. Can’t I stay with you?’ And then his eyes went wide as he remembered a crucial detail. ‘Sabrina said it wouldn’t work without me. The magic will work but without me to pull through the line she won’t have the power to control the creatures she creates.’

  Lilith looked hard at Alfie. ‘But the spell will still work. She’ll still be able to create her race of uber-wolves. That, without her able to control them, would be a hundred times worse than anything she has planned. You have to go back.’ Lilith touched Alfie’s chin. ‘She’ll pull you back with magic if you don’t. Or she’ll try to and that might fracture your sanity all together. Better if you go willingly.’

  Alfie found he was nodding his head, although he didn’t know why. And Lilith was growing faint, smoky, ghostlike.

  45

  IRIS, BLAKE AND Vikram sat in the SUV across the road from the house Alfie had rented for him and his pack when he first came to Oxford in search of the Silver Collar. This was the house where Alfie had changed so suddenly on the doorstep and bitten Aurelia. The house where Iris had cornered Alfie in his attic bedroom and pressed two guns against his chest. The house where Iris and Alfie had finally realised what their insistent feelings for each other meant. And, of course, it was the house where the Silver Crown had brought them when they captured them and locked them in the basement to await their fate. It was, in short, a house with more than a couple of memories. More significant and poignant to Iris than Dr Tobias’s rambling manor. She swallowed.

  Blake said, ‘OK, I reckon the back’s our best bet. We got in through the back once before.’

  ‘No need, Blake,’ Iris said softly. She was rummaging in the pocket of her combats for her key chain. She drew it out, sparkling. ‘I still have a key.’

  ‘Oh, cute!’ said Blake. ‘Alfie gave you a key. I never knew you were that serious about him.’

  Iris opened the door of the SUV, slipped out on to the pavement and turned to look at Blake. ‘I am deadly serious about him, Blake.’

  Alfie opened his eyes. His hand still hurt. His cock was still sore. His balls still throbbed.

  Divinia was stood over him. He swallowed hard and looked up at her. She smiled a terrible smile. He felt her thrall rush over him like a terrible living death, the power she had to command him. To suck him deeper into obedience or to let him dance away from her, held only by the lightest thread – but a thread she could use to yank him close again whenever she pleased.

  Divinia said, ‘As I was saying to Sabrina, the power I have to call all lycans to me, like a reversal of summoning is only the beginning. I can use that to create a link through you. With the power of the Sacred Silvers. The Collar, the Crown, the Cage, the chains. A thread that binds us all. A connection that will let your power ripple through them all. All Beasts. All close to the skin. Tell me, Alfred, don’t you think it’s a wonderful idea?’

  Alfie shook his head. ‘Why? Why ever would you want to do this?’

  Divinia laughed. ‘You don’t even know who you are, do you? What you are.’

  ‘I guess I do actually. Maybe. I’m coming to realise.’

  ‘Do you remember me, Alfred?’ Divinia said softly. ‘We’ve met before.’

  ‘I don’t think.’

  ‘I can be in any wolf. Take them. Control them. The Silver Crown didn’t hold me all the time. I have tested your power once before. You remember Hera.’

  ‘Hera in Brazil, who gave me my chains.’

  ‘Yes. She tested you first, didn’t she? Used your power. The wolves who guard the Amazon gateway are
a rare breed. Every month they save the earth from destruction by those terrible creatures that leak through the gate, the Carci. But only werewolves can kill Carci. So every month at full moon when the gate opens they protect it. But if anything slips through – like those triplets – they are powerless for twenty-eight days. And then you came along. With your power to change when you needed to. Unimaginable.’

  Alfie looked at her. ‘Well, I guess. In fact, Hera did say something about that.’

  ‘It was all foretold. That you would slay the triplets, find the collar, that your woman would be the warrior that freed me.’

  ‘Iris didn’t free you.’

  ‘She destroyed the Silver Crown. They were holding me. I gave them power and they contained me. They used to use this cage to dampen my power. The silver is spelled for more than just holding your form.’

  ‘So why did they let you out?’

  ‘Sabrina. She controlled me with witchcraft. She was my portable prison. Until your woman helped me out there too.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She led a coven to Sabrina. Powered her down. Set me free.’

  ‘But you and Sabrina are in this together.’

  ‘Ah, Sabrina. She is a tricky one. Now she knows that she and I have common goals, yes, we are working together. She is a useful ally. And so are you.’

  ‘I still don’t . . . What do you want?’

  ‘You know it, werewolf. I need your power. The power to change outside the moon, to flip, to have the wolf close to your skin. To be the Beast. What if every werewolf had that power? We are so vulnerable – a silver blade or a silver bullet. If every wolf could change whenever he wanted . . .’

  ‘I don’t change whenever I want –’

  ‘Shush, werewolf. You don’t understand. I will draw them to me. Just before the full moon rises I will have my maximum power. The moon herself draws her strength into me to show my true form. I can use that power to call the wolves. Turn the power of summoning around. Draw every wolf to me and give them a taste of you, my prince, of your power. Let them all taste you. Draw them tight to you with thrall. And let them be part of what you are and at your command.’