by Roy Gill
There was a curious flicker in the old woman’s eyes. “The poor boy,” she said pointedly, “is clearly overcome with emotion. It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other, and he was quite heartbroken when I had to go away. He begged me to stay… as I’m sure he remembers only too well.”
That wasn’t right… Cameron rubbed his forehead. There was something going on – but he had no idea what. He glanced at Grey. The odious daemon was clutching the rim of his prosecutor’s box, breathing heavily, waiting for any fumble he could seize upon.
“No, that’s her.” Cameron swallowed, wondering what he was getting into. “My gran. Grandma Ives. The one we’ve all been looking for.”
“You see? Poor lad. This has all been a great strain on him.” The old woman held up a powdery hand, forestalling Grey’s response. “If the Court will not take the word of two members of a distinguished Parallel family, would you question the testimony of Lord Janus himself?”
There were murmurs from the jury at the mention of the Portal God.
“No, I thought not. There are any number of Important Daemonic Personages I could call upon to vouchsafe my identity. Such are the advantages of being a premier Parallel trader of many years standing.” A thin smile spread across the old woman’s lips. “I put it to the Court: I am Isobel Ives – whether you like it or not.”
“I would question it!” Grey exploded, his chins quivering with indignation. “I knew Ms Ives. I had the great misfortune of dealing with the harridan on several occasions, and Madam, you are not her!”
The old woman’s eyebrows arched. “How very strange. I have no recollection of you at all.” She leant forward in her rope cradle and studied the shaking daemon. “I think I’d remember such a colossal bore.”
The jury erupted into laughter; wolfish yelps mixed with Cervidae snorts and all manner of strange shrieks and cries.
“My Lord, I must protest,” Grey began, but Grandma Ives checked her wristwatch and patted her face as if covering a yawn, which only seemed to drive the jury to greater hysteria.
Cameron clenched his fists, his fingernails biting into his palms, dumbstruck by her performance. He honestly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The old woman caught his eye and, to his amazement, gave him the tiniest of half-winks.
What the Parallel was going on?
“ENOUGH!” The judge’s gavel slammed into the lectern, its percussive beat silencing the chattering Court. “The defence claims we have the woman – the prosecution argues not. There is a way to prove this.” His mouth opened wide, revealing black and red ridges, and he licked his lips with his shrivelled tongue. “There must be a test of blood.”
“Oh dear.” The lamp turned orange. “You’d be amazed how often it comes down to that.”
“What does he mean?” Cameron asked. “He’s not gonna bite her?”
“It’s simple. The bloodlines of the human and daemon clans that descend from Mitchell and Astredo’s covens – those present at the World Split – are well known. It is those families who carry the Parallel Inheritance, and it is their activities this Court oversees. If your witness is who she claims to be, his Honour will know it.”
The old woman however didn’t seem particularly pleased at the judge’s proposal. She tugged at the rope cradle with her umbrella, as if hoping to trigger the mechanism that would lift her out of Court. “Now really, is this necessary? Nobody said anything to me about a blood test.”
“This will settle it.” The judge’s fangs protruded further. “Finally and irrevocably. Bring her to me!”
Overhead, the winches started to clank. With a great shuddering jerk, Grandma Ives’ cradle began to shift. She clapped her hand to her head and Cameron blinked. It looked for a moment as if her great silver tower of hair had temporarily slipped sideways…
As the cradle moved horizontally across the airspace of the Court, it drew closer to Cameron and the old woman met his gaze directly. He had a sudden start of recognition, and let out a stifled yelp.
It wasn’t Grandma Ives at all –
It was Eve!
Eve – dressed in his gran’s old clothes, her face lacquered in thick white make-up: an elaborate network of fine lines etched with eyebrow pencil around her eyes and mouth. In the dingy, smoke-filled Court he’d been utterly taken in.
“What – are – you – doing?” he stuttered as her cradle swung past.
“Trying to save us all, what do you think?” she hissed back.
“Some kind of warning would’ve been good – before you went all Halloween and dragged up as Evil-Zombie-Grandma!”
“Well forgive me,” she said icily, “I was going to tell you properly. How was I to know I was gonna get zapped off Janus’s train by a magic doorway – and end up back in Scott and Forceworthy’s cellar? At least I left a note!”
“Note? What note? I didn’t get any note?”
There was another groan from the winches, and the cradle took a further lurch across the pit.
“Well, I left one! That nasty lump started bleating at me as soon as I got back, so there was no time to lose. I had to go find all this stuff.” She flicked her hand, indicating her disguise.
Cameron swore. “The lump! I bet it ate it. It already scrobbled our answerphone, so it must’ve munched that as well…”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Eve. “It didn’t work anyway. I’m going to get bitten by bat-face.” She gave the ropes a frantic shake. “Cameron, I’m proper scared. Will we still be friends if I go all blood-sucky?”
“My Lord Justice, you can’t just bite her!” Cameron shouted. “It’s not fair!”
“It will decide the issue of identity beyond any reasonable doubt.”
“You won’t even like her! I bet she tastes awful – all old and mean and bad-tempered!”
Eve shot Cameron a look. “Really?”
He rolled his shoulders. Best I could come up with…
The judge gave a dry cough. “Gratified as I am by your concern, you need have no fear. I require only a sample – not a full vein to draw on.” He held out a long pin in his claw-like hand. A gargoyle daemon swooped down, seized it and flew it over to Eve. “My ‘select condition’ will not be passed on.”
Eve hesitated, her face pale, the sharp tip of the pin poised above her finger.
“See how she resists,” Grey crowed. “She knows her deception will be uncovered! I trust the Court will prosecute this false and treacherous witness to the very limits of the law.”
“Oh shut up, you horrible thing.” Eve closed her eyes, and with a tiny shudder pressed the pin into her flesh. A bright red spot of blood sprang out, staining the metal. The gargoyle snatched the pin from her and returned it to the judge’s hand.
“If this woman descends from Mistress Agnes Ives O’ the Black Hill, late of Mitchell’s coven, I will know it. Blood will always out.” The judge sniffed at the steel instrument with evident relish. His claw gestured in the air. “The witness may be removed. This is all I require.”
The winches began to clatter again, and Eve’s cradle started to ascend. “Sorry,” she mouthed to Cameron.
“Don’t be! It was a magnificent try!” he called as the cradle swung up and out of view.
All eyes in the Court turned to the judge. Delicately, as if about to savour a rare wine, he stuck the pin into his mouth.
Cameron’s chest went tight. Eve had no family connection to him or Gran. She was just a friend, someone he’d stumbled upon and helped escape from the clutches of Mrs Ferguson. There was no way this could turn out right. He wished Morgan were here. One of his lopsided grins would be awesomely reassuring.
What would he say?
“Any ideas how to get out of this one, Shorty?”
“I was thinking we could suddenly develop the power of flight.”
“Top notion. Let me know how that works out.”
The wolf-boy was skilled at getting out of tight corners – but even he would balk at a breakout attempt from a net s
winging over a pit.
“Interesting.” The judge drew the pin slowly from his mouth and gave it a final lick. “The generations have had an influence… the Parallel Inheritance is diluted by the presence of other human families, its unique flavour altered. Nonetheless,” he set the pin down delicately, “this is undoubtedly the Ives bloodline. I know it. I am thus satisfied this woman is Isobel Ives. She lives, so the tenancy of the shop remains unchanged. Mr Grey, your client has lost.”
Cameron exhaled hard, letting out acres of tension with a rush. This was the second time in recent minutes his mind had been blown. How could the judge get it so wrong? Not that he was about to raise an objection… He hurriedly composed his face. “Good. I’m glad. Now, can I please go home?”
“I won’t have this!” Dr Black shouted. “Grey, what are you going to do about this travesty?”
“My Lord, I must protest –”
“Must you, Grey?”
Grey swelled to his full height, his belly toppling over the edge of the box that held him. “This human is clearly not Lady Ives, as anyone can see –”
“I rely on subtler senses,” the judge snarled. “The case is dismissed.”
Dr Black’s cradle began to rise, its occupant ranting about injustice. Grey however remained where he was. His swollen fists clenched and he began to shake.
A vibration ran through the court. The air stirred and the temperature seemed to drop by several degrees. Cameron took a tighter hold of his cradle. Was it his imagination, or was it swaying more than before?
He glanced up at the guide ropes. The winch mechanisms were creaking and groaning like ships’ rigging caught in a gathering storm. There was a sudden crunch of gears that echoed round the chasm. Seconds later: a corresponding twang of something shearing free from its moorings.
For a moment, everything seemed frozen – then loose rope whiplashed past and the jury box tipped sideways, suspended now only by two of its corners. The occupants yelled and screamed as they tried frantically to stay onboard the slanting container. Those that could got clear: the fey woman leapt into flight and the light column simply vanished. The metal beetle’s carapace cracked open, revealing a helicopter-like propeller. It whirred upwards, but two of the jurors – who had no other means of escape – jumped for its legs and grabbed on, trying to hitch a lift. Their combined weight was too much for the insect: the propeller sputtered, and all three spiralled down.
“The jury are released from duty.” The judge’s leathery wings unfurled luxuriantly, his fangs glinting. “Their services are no longer required.” He took to the air, heading downwards in close pursuit of the fallen jurors.
Another creaking judder resonated through the court. More ropes started to ping and snap. Cameron’s faithful lamp plunged out of sight.
“Weir! No!” he shouted, as the flickering glow dwindled into darkness.
The rope net around him started to give and the cradle dropped sickeningly by a couple of metres before jerking taut again. The lattice was unravelling, coming apart like a string bag pulled by a loose thread. He reached up, grabbing the main rope with all his might.
“You’re doing this, aren’t you? It’s all you!” he yelled at Grey.
Grey was exultant, his box alone still secure upon its ropes. He was riding the swinging container gleefully, in the manner of a pirate king sailing into battle. “Problems will be absorbed, young sir! And if they can’t be absorbed, they will simply be removed!”
Only a single rope was left in Cameron’s hands. The cradle was entirely unknotted, its strands flailing loosely around him. He could feel his grip slipping. The wind whipped past, raging and howling in his ears…
CHAPTER 9
Outside the Fat Moon
The sides of the cavern were too far away. Even if he could’ve leapt the distance, the ancient walls were slick with slime, and footholds far from plentiful.
Cameron focussed instead on the rope that was creeping through his hands, centimetre by painful centimetre. Close up, its design was surprisingly complex: composed of numerous tiny fibres interwoven and whorled around each other.
Without questioning the instinct that drove him, he thrust his chin forward and snapped his jaws tight. The rope tasted bitter, its threads impregnated with ancient tar. His hands flexed afresh, somehow finding a traction they had previously lacked.
“Hold on, mate! We’ve got you!” a voice boomed and, with a yank, the rope began to move. In fits and starts he was dragged upwards. Grey’s manic laughter choked off as his opponent was snatched away.
Cameron spun, rotating swiftly clockwise then anticlockwise and back again, but, anchored by both teeth and hands, he clung on.
Rock walls turned to close-packed brick and then to wooden panels. At last he was approaching the top of the pit.
“That’s it! You’re nearly there!” Eve’s head appeared over the edge, freed from her grandiose silver wig. Her hands flew to her mouth and she turned to her unseen companion. “Morgan! He’s gone –”
“I know! Ignore it. We’ve got to keep turning!”
“But look at him!”
“What did I say? TURN!”
The rope started to lift faster. At last it was all reeled in, swallowed onto the winch’s spindle. Two pairs of arms seized Cameron and pulled him over the balustrade. He tumbled to the ground in a heap of aching limbs.
He whooped in delight and grinned broadly at his rescuers, and started to say how good it was to see them, but his mouth didn’t seem to work, and his tongue got snagged up on his teeth. Rough palms pressed either side of his face. Morgan’s green eyes burned, his familiar scent surprisingly close. Cameron tried to say “What are you doing?” but the only sound he could form was a startled yelp.
“Listen,” Morgan spoke calmly, “there’s no moon right now. Do you hear me? It’s daytime. The next Fat Moon is a month away. Do you understand?”
“Have you gone mental or something?”
Cameron tried to retort, but instead let out a bass-heavy rumble from deep within his chest. He shoved hard at Morgan to make him back off. As his hands made contact, he realised they weren’t hands at all – they were paws.
He shot backwards, pulling free from Morgan’s grip.
“Hey, hey, hey! Relax!” Morgan said urgently. “You’re partway to becoming a wolf. You know that now. Your head and your forearms have shifted. But it’s all right! You can still come back. You’ve just got to focus.”
“Vow…cus?” Cameron’s voice was a throaty growl.
“Yeah. You’ve gotta concentrate. Remember how I taught you? You’ve gotta think human-shaped thoughts. See the things you can only do when you’re in that body: like reading a book, or using your fingers to play videogames, or shaping the chords on your guitar. Forget about the chase, and how you feel so strong you could run for always, free and wild.”
“Morgan, I don’t think you’re helping.” Eve reached out and touched Cameron’s arm where the black wolf fur had broken through his shirt. “It’s ok, Cameron. You don’t need to run. You’re safe. Think about us. Think about home.”
He tried to do as she said but adrenaline was surging through his body. His eyes narrowed and he sniffed the air, detecting the telltale trace of the Greys. He wanted to deal with them, to hunt them down…
“The… reys? Wha… bout… the… reys?”
“Scarpered,” said Morgan. “They had control for a while, but the Weir lamps came zooming in with backup: the biggest bull daemons you’ve ever seen! Proper mad minotaurs, beating the Greys back with sticks and ropes, and tearing them away from the winches. It was pretty awesome, actually…”
“Again, not so much with the helping.” Eve shot Morgan a look. “The point is: they’re gone. You’re with us. You can be Cameron again. Not the wolf.”
He met her eyes and she nodded encouragingly. “Trust me.”
A shiver rippled through him and his skin contracted, as if he was being flung from the heat of a summer’s day
into a bracing shower. He felt his muscles tighten and his bones start to shift. The fur retreated from his hands. He touched his face, feeling it flatten out, moulding into its familiar human shape and leaving behind the pointed muzzle of his wolf-self.
“It – keeps – happening.” He stretched his jaw. “I didn’t even notice myself shift that time. How is that possible?”
“Shouldn’t be. Not outside the Fat Moon.” Morgan had an odd expression on his face, somewhere between jealousy and fear. “Not in the Human World and not on the Parallel. Down in Daemonic, maybe, if you were a full-blooded werewolf… But you’re not.”
Cameron slanted a glance at him. “Maybe I’m turning into one?”
Morgan shook his head. “Doesn’t work like that. You’ve got to be born to it. Not like you. You’re a human. You just got bit.”
“Bit by you.”
“Yeah, I know.” The wolf-boy turned away, and walked to the side of the pit. He folded his arms and leant upon the balustrade, his face lit by the reddish glow from below. “Like I’m ever gonna forget.”
Cameron hurried after him. “But don’t you see… it’s ok? My wolf-side saved me. It keeps saving me. It’s how I escaped the train when the Greys attacked, and how I got rid of that Weaver. It’s a good thing. Without it, I’d be dead.”
“It is what it is, mate.” Morgan shook his head. “But this is just gonna make the pack more interested, and they’ve already got a nose on. Once they get fixed on something, they don’t ever let it go.”
Eve frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“They know all about Cameron,” said Morgan. “I’d better tell you two what happened after you left Janus’s train…
“Those grey blob-things went clambering over the Temple carriage. I could hear them thumping about on the roof like a couple of extra-fat seagulls. I kept yelling, telling Janus he had to do something, but he just ignored me. Sips his wine, dead calm, like nothing was going on.
“There was this metal scream from the engine, and we start to slow right down. We were in Daemonic by then – I’d felt us leave the Parallel. I roared at that two-faced twit, said he had to take me back.
