Decembrius resisted the urge to turn and look, though he was tensed, ready to fight.
“What are they doing?”
Kalix, still embracing Decembrius, risked a quick glance over his shoulder.
“They’re going toward the Douglas-MacPhees’ van. You can look around now. Be careful.”
Decembrius looked around. Three men were walking away from them, in the direction of the Douglas-MacPhees’ van. Decembrius didn’t recognize any of them, but trusted Kalix’s assertion that they were hunters. He eased himself from her grasp, and they both watched as the hunters got into a car. Moments later, the Douglas-MacPhees van pulled away from the curb. After a few seconds, the car followed them.
“Were the Douglas-MacPhees meant to wait for you?” asked Kalix.
“No, I came here in my own car. We’re meeting at their flat.”
“We’d better do something,” said Kalix. No MacRinnalch could abandon a fellow werewolf to the hunters, even enemies like the Douglas-MacPhees.
“I’m parked around the corner,” said Decembrius. “Let’s go.”
Kalix and Decembrius hurried around to his car, parked at a meter in the next side road. They had to wait at traffic lights, and by they time they drove back onto Narrow Street neither the Douglas-MacPhees nor their pursuers were in sight.
“They’ll be heading home,” said Decembrius. They set off in pursuit. Kalix had forgotten her recent embarrassment. She was focused and excited and leaned forward in her seat, scanning the road ahead for any sign of their enemies.
CHAPTER 47
Imperial Adviser Bakmer was always uneasy around Sarapen. Sarapen was so large and grim. As an alien in the land of the Hainusta he shouldn’t have been able to maintain his strength, but the Empress regarded him as important enough to grant him a permanent spell of maintenance. It allowed him to survive, and flourish. Bakmer doubted than any of the imperial guards could have defeated Sarapen in combat.
Why the Empress was so keen on an alien werewolf wasn’t clear. It was very irregular and wouldn’t go down well with the population were they to learn of it. Bakmer wasn’t sure whether the two were romantically linked. If so, it was even more irregular. Scandalous really, though as reigning Empress of the Hainusta, Kabachetka was not subject to the same rules as the rest of the population. She could do much as she liked, just as her mother Asaratanti had done.
Bakmer greeted Sarapen politely when he returned to the palace. “Back from the desert so soon? I’m afraid the Empress isn’t here.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
Sarapen looked suspiciously at Bakmer, whom he didn’t like at all. “I thought you kept her engagement diary.”
“I keep a copy,” Bakmer corrected him. “The main diary resides with Lady Gezinka, who is, of course, Official Diary Keeper.”
Sarapen growled. There were many court officials. It was hard to keep track of them all.
“So where is Gezinka?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know. Probably with the Empress. Unless she’s with Distikka.”
Adviser Bakmer pronounced Distikka’s name as if he had a sour taste in his mouth. Distikka was another person who surely didn’t belong in the Empress’s court. She was a foreigner, a Hiyasta. She was notably uncivil, and hardly paid any attention to the normal formalities of court behavior. Bakmer was continually jealous of her good standing with Kabachetka.
“If the Empress appears, inform her I’m looking for her,” said Sarapen.
“I will,” said Bakmer, forcing more warmth into his voice than he felt. Sarapen departed, leaving Bakmer dissatisfied. He didn’t know where the Empress was, which already made him uncomfortable. Might he be falling out of favor? It wouldn’t surprise him if Gezinka was using the opportunity to criticize him behind his back. He didn’t trust her at all. She was as bad as Alchet, the Empress’s chief handmaiden. As for Lady Tecton, who’d recently risen to prominence as the Empress’s card partner, she was as bad as the rest: scheming, devious and ambitious. Bakmer sighed. Life had been easier when Kabachetka was only a princess. Then his advisory duties had mainly related to clothes, hair and fashion. He was good at that. Now she was Empress, there seemed a lot more to worry about, and the young adviser wasn’t sure he was up to the task.
CHAPTER 48
Thrix, inspired by Minerva, had absorbed her teaching and practiced her art till her skill reached a level few others could match. There were no werewolf sorcerers to equal her, and not many humans. At this moment, she was sitting alone in her flat in Knightsbridge, feeling depressed.
“I’ve wasted my skill,” she said out loud to no one. “I’ve spent the last twenty years developing fashion-related magic and now I can’t do anything else.”
She looked down at her ankles with an expression of distaste.
I must have spent weeks trying to perfect the extra-high-heels spell, she thought. Why didn’t I realize I should be concentrating on the Guild?
Thrix’s spacious living room was cluttered with sorcerous talismans she’d dragged out of cupboards and wardrobes. She’d assembled every magical item she’d ever used in an effort to concoct some sort of spell that might find the Guild’s headquarters. The living room table, previously home to stacks of fashion magazines, was now piled high with magical herbs she’d bought or collected in the past week. The room smelled strongly of them, though not as strongly as the kitchen, which had been the scene of several attempts to brew potions, none of them successful.
“I’ve used every locating spell ever written, including Minerva’s secret ones, and none of them has worked. Whatever sorcery the Avenaris Guild is using to hide itself, it’s stronger than I am.”
Thrix made an effort to force herself into a more positive frame of mind. It was difficult. She’d spent many years trying to boost her self-confidence after an uncomfortable childhood. At the castle, the daughters of the Thane had not been greatly encouraged to develop their talents.
Thrix clenched her firsts. “Don’t start thinking about your childhood,” she said out loud again. “That’s not going to help.”
She was about to snap her fingers to summon a bottle of wine but checked her actions. “No more summoning wine. That’s another way I’ve been wasting magic. Just pour it like everyone else.”
Thrix fetched a bottle of wine from the kitchen and applied a corkscrew. She twisted it in then tried to extract the cork. Nothing happened. She pulled harder. The cork sliced in two, leaving the bottle still sealed and virtually impossible to open by normal means.
“Oh damn it,” raged Thrix. “Stupid bottle.”
She growled the words of an opening spell and the remaining portion of the cork flew from the bottle, ricocheting off the wall.
Thrix filled her glass. She tasted the wine and made a face. “Why did I buy this?”
It struck her she’d hardly had a decent bottle of wine since Captain Easterly had been killed. Her ex-boyfriend had been something of a wine connoisseur.
“Something else to dislike Kalix for. No, don’t think about Kalix, that won’t help either.”
She looked around the room at all her magical artifacts. She was stuck for inspiration. The red light on her answering machine was blinking, as it had been for the past week. Messages from work, no doubt. Thrix ignored them. As she sipped her wine, she thought of the day she’d found Minerva dead. Thrix shuddered. It had been a terrible experience. She could still remember vividly the feel of her dead teacher in her arms as she struggled to take her back up the mountain, to lay her to rest.
“Trust Kalix to get Minerva killed!”
It was easy for Dominil to say that the Guild was responsible, not Kalix, but if Kalix hadn’t been so weak-minded and inconsiderate as to take all her laudanum that morning, Minerva wouldn’t have been left alone and defenseless on the mountain side, an easy target for the Guild’s sniper.
Thrix wasn’t feeling too kindly toward Dominil either. What was she doing getting ad
dicted to laudanum anyway? And then bothering Minerva with her problems? Didn’t Minerva deserve a peaceful retirement without interference from drug-addled werewolves?
If Kalix and Dominil had just learned to control themselves properly instead of getting addicted to laudanum, none of this would have happened, thought Thrix, and she felt even angrier.
Dominil was meant to be looking for the Avenaris Guild via the internet, land registries, company records and so on, but Thrix didn’t believe that would get them anywhere. If the Guild possessed sorcery powerful enough to completely hide it from her spells, it had most probably taken care of everything else too.
She made a sound that was half sigh, half growl, and picked up a manuscript. It was one of Minerva’s late writings, details of a spell she’d made but never fully described. As far as Thrix could make out, it was a spell for finding a lover anywhere in the world. That wasn’t exactly what Thrix needed, but it contained some unusual and powerful features, and she wondered if she might somehow adapt it. She picked up a notebook from the floor and started to make some notes. A strand of hair fell over her face. She pushed it back impatiently. Thrix’s golden hair was tied back and had been unwashed for several days. She wore a very old pair of jeans and she couldn’t even have said what color the T-shirt she wore was without checking in a mirror. For the first time in her adult life, the Enchantress had abandoned all traces of vanity.
“I’m going to find them,” she muttered. “And then I’m going to kill them all.”
Another strand of hair fell over her face. Annoyed at her hair, and everything else, Thrix picked up a pair of dressmakers scissors from the floor and hacked off the loose strand.
I’ve got too much hair, she thought. It’s getting in the way.
She cut off another strand and felt some satisfaction as she watched it fall to the floor.
CHAPTER 49
The Fire Queen was sulking in her palace. Her mood had not improved. There was no word about her new dress for the fashion reception. Apparently Thrix was not going to make her a new dress. Malveria took it very badly. At meetings with her government ministers, she snapped at them for imagined failures and rudely dismissed plans that she herself had originally suggested. She told them she was disappointed in them all, and suggested it was no wonder the nation was in such a poor state if her government ministers were all so inefficient. Even the eternally loyal Xakthan was not immune from criticism. He was deeply wounded by the Queen’s sudden decision not to attend his son’s military graduation next week.
“But why,” raged the Fire Queen later, to Gruselvere and Iskiline, “should I attend the wretched ceremony? I’ve seen ten thousand young elementals graduate from military academy and this will be no different. Besides”—Malveria shuddered—“one cannot go anywhere these days without the dreadful Lord Stratov inviting me to his castle. Why does he keep bothering me?”
The Queen looked around at her chief dresser and her wardrobe mistress, but they were unable to supply an answer. It was undoubtedly true that Lord Stratov had been pursuing the Queen in recent weeks. He was never away from court.
“And Garfire is just as bad!” cried the Queen. “Yesterday he absolutely insisted I attend some foul hunt on his wretched estates. He was most persistent. Had a young handmaiden not provided a distraction by dropping a plate of hors d’oeuvre and then bursting into tears, I would have been hard pressed to make an escape. What is wrong with my lords and dukes these days? They are infuriating me. One longs to pick up Garfire and dip him in the Great Volcano, but he is of course Duchess Gargamond’s brother and cannot be dipped in the Volcano, at least not just for being tedious.”
The Fire Queen drank very deeply from a bottle of red wine and sent a young courier hurrying to the cellars to make sure her personal supply was not running low.
“And when I escaped from the Duke, what do you think happened?”
Iskiline and Gruselvere looked inquisitively toward the Queen, though they had already heard the story. “The Earl of Flamineau practically leaped on me to invite me to a masked ball he’s holding in his chateau. Since when does Earl Flamineau hold masked balls? The man is so decrepit I’m surprised he can still dance. What is the matter with them all?”
Gruselvere giggled.
“Are you giggling?” said the Fire Queen. “What is the source of this hilarity?”
“They’re trying to woo you,” said Gruselvere.
The Fire Queen scowled. “I had worked this out for myself, Gruselvere. But why are they trying to woo me at this moment? I remain the same Fire Queen I have been for . . . uh . . . several years. Why this sudden upsurge of interest?”
Neither Iskiline nor Gruselvere could suggest a reason.
“I suspect First Minister Xakthan,” declared Malveria. “He’s been trying to marry me off for years. One simply winces at his lack of subtlety. I will produce an heir when I’m ready and not before, and I will not produce it with Garfire, Stratov or Flamineau!” Malveria sat erect in her chair and slapped a palm noisily on the armrest. “None of them are at all suitable!”
“Who would be suitable?” wondered Iskiline, who, like her companion, was taking the opportunity to drink deeply from the contents of the Fire Queen’s cellars.
“How can I think about that when I am in the midst of the most severe fashion crisis ever to hit these lands?” cried the Fire Queen. “With Thrix MacRinnalch shunning me and no dress for the fashion designers’ reception? Now I cannot attend for fear of inferior frock shame. And yet I’m expected to attend ceremonies, run my government, get married and produce children as if nothing was wrong?”
Fire dripped from the Queen’s fingers. “I always knew Thrix MacRinnalch would let me down in the end. No doubt she has been planning this outrage for years. It was simply foolish to trust a werewolf, and a MacRinnalch at that.” Malveria scowled mightily, and more fire emerged from her fingers. “Did I tell you I called in to her wretched office in Soho last week? Me, the Fire Queen, reigning sovereign of the Hiyasta nation, appearing cap in hand like a beggar, pleading for a new dress. And she was not there! And her assistant claims not to know where she is! I won’t have it!”
The Queen’s rage abruptly deflated. She sighed and sank in her chair. “Now I cannot attend the event. When the fashionable people assemble tonight, I will not be there.” The Queen drank heavily from her glass. “It is all very trying.”
A young attendant in a flawlessly embroidered red costume entered the room and bowed deeply. “Mighty Queen, Duke Garfire is without, asking permission to see you.”
“Garfire? Did I not instruct you to tell him I had left the palace?”
“Uh . . . no, mighty Queen.”
“Well, you should have guessed. Tell him I’m indisposed. The Fire Queen is not at home to anyone. Now begone, and apart from bringing wine at regular intervals, do not appear again.”
CHAPTER 50
“This is where the Douglas-MacPhees live?” said Kalix, looking up at the very ordinary flat above a health-food shop in Hoxton.
“Yes,” said Decembrius.
“It looks just like a normal flat.”
“What were you expecting, a pirates’ lair?”
“No,” said Kalix sharply. Really, she had been expecting something like that, and wouldn’t have been surprised to find a skull and crossbones hanging out of the window.
The Douglas-MacPhees’ van was parked along the street in a resident’s parking space. Kalix got out of Decembrius’s car. She noticed that he was arranging his hair in the rear-view mirror.
“Do you have to do that now?”
“Why not?” sad Decembrius, unabashed. “Nothing wrong with looking good.”
“It doesn’t look that good.”
“That’s not what you said before.”
“I’ve never said anything about your hair.”
“Yes, you did, you said you liked it now it was longer.”
“I don’t remember saying that.”
D
ecembrius had changed in the past year. When he was an associate of Sarapen’s, he’d worn a suit. Now he had a leather jacket and his hair was long, swept back and a brighter shade of red than it used to be. It did look good, but Kalix wasn’t about to tell him that. They walked toward the door beside the health food shop.
Kalix hesitated. “What are we going to do? Just ring the doorbell?”
“Why not?” asked Decembrius.
“It’s going to look strange, me ringing their doorbell.”
Kalix felt silly at the prospect of ringing the bell. Duncan Douglas-MacPhee would laugh at her, if he didn’t just attack her first.
“Probably the hunters just followed them and now they’ve gone,” said Kalix. “We should leave. You can call them and tell them you saw hunters following them.”
Decembrius was no longer listening. He’d walked up to the door and was staring at it fixedly.
Kalix caught up with him. “What is it—” she began, but didn’t finish the sentence. She picked up the same scent as Decembrius. The smell of blood was coming from behind the door, unnoticeable to the people who walked by on the pavement, but distinctive to Kalix and Decembrius.
Decembrius looked around. “Give me some cover.”
Kalix leaned against him, spreading her coat a little, as if putting her arms around him. When there were no pedestrians nearby, Decembrius slammed his elbow into the door. There was a loud noise as the lock broke, but with the traffic in the street, no one seemed to notice. Decembrius backed quickly inside, followed by Kalix. They found themselves in a dark stairway. The smell of blood was overwhelming. Decembrius pushed the light switch then ran up the stairs.
The door to the flat was open. Kalix and Decembrius rushed in. In the hallway, Duncan Douglas-MacPhee was lying face down in a puddle of blood. His sister Rhona lay beside him, on her side, with a wound in her heart. Their huge cousin William was slumped in the doorway to the next room. Decembrius swiftly felt for a pulse on each body.
The Anxiety of Kalix the Werewolf Page 19
