Chapter Thirty-Nine
West Field Gardens, South London, quarter moon
Vijay was stuck at home, and part of him was glad to be safely out of harm’s way, especially with all the trouble that was unfolding in the city. He had only been caught up in one small part of the violence on New Year’s Eve, and that had been terrifying enough. Watching the events on TV afterwards he realized that his mum had been right – they could all easily have been killed. And now it was even more dangerous with the soldiers shooting people, and the death toll rising day by day.
But another part of him rebelled against being kept indoors, and that was the part that he had to listen to, no matter how much it frightened him.
What Rose had said to him in the hospital had filled him with anguish. It was obvious that she admired Drake and the way he had beaten that thug with the baseball bat. Aasha too was now totally smitten with Drake, and Drake himself was strutting about like a peacock.
Vijay knew that somehow he had failed his friends, even though he had tried so hard to do the right thing. All his life he had been taught that violence was wrong, that force should be used only as a last resort after all other avenues had been exhausted. But the recent events had cast his thoughts into confusion. It didn’t make any difference whether he was wrong or right. He was too weak to matter. The strong did whatever they wanted. They always had. They always would.
He’d followed his sister into town to keep her safe, and in the end he’d done nothing to help her. Others had stepped up in his place. He’d been a fool to imagine that he was strong enough to make a difference. The others were strong. Rose, Drake, and Aasha.
He knew what he had to do next. It was simple. He had to prove that he could be brave like them. He had known it for ever, but now it was more urgent and important than ever before.
The first time Vijay had met Rose at school, almost the first thing she had said to him was that he needed to be strong. He needed to stand up to the class bullies.
He had tried so hard, had even fooled himself for a short while that he had succeeded, but now he saw the truth.
Drake was the brave one. He always had been. And now Drake’s bravery had won him the prize he most wanted. Aasha. His sister had always treated Drake like dirt, referring to him scornfully as Vijay’s creepy friend. But now she was happy to be his girlfriend, despite being two years older than him.
The lesson couldn’t be clearer. Vijay needed to be as brave as Drake, and prove it, and then he could be with Rose.
His parents had grounded him, but that didn’t matter. He would have to face much bigger challenges than defying his parents if he was going to win Rose’s heart. He would have to do something truly dangerous. And nothing dangerous was going to come his way while he was stuck indoors. To do that, he would have to defy his parents and venture out.
The New Year was the time for making resolutions, and Vijay resolved to meet the days ahead with courage and fortitude. He would start immediately. He unhooked the sling from over his shoulder and slowly stretched out his arm. The sprained elbow still hurt a little, but it was healing just like the nurse had said. There had been no need for him to be such a baby about it. He would deal with the pain without complaining, for Rose’s sake.
He opened the door of his room quietly and tiptoed out onto the upstairs landing. The TV was on in the front room downstairs. His dad was probably watching the news. He could hear the sound of his mum cooking in the kitchen. His grandmother would be sitting in her favourite armchair, sewing or reading, or perhaps having a quiet snooze.
He crept along the landing past Aasha’s room. Low voices came from inside. Drake’s deep voice and Aasha’s too, higher-pitched and louder. It sounded like she was bossing him about. Vijay allowed himself a small smile. He wondered if Drake had any idea what kind of girl he’d taken on. No doubt he would find out soon enough.
He walked quietly to the top of the stairs and hesitated. He didn’t want to disobey his parents’ wishes. He had always been a good boy. But that was probably his problem. Too eager to please, like a puppy dog. Too docile. Aasha had always been the rebel in the family. Now Vijay had to find his inner rebel too. He pictured Rose in his mind, drawing the smooth curves of her face, the tight curls of her hair, the willowy form of her body. It was enough to firm his resolve.
Quiet as a mouse, but with the heart of a lion, Vijay sneaked silently down the stairs and out through the front door.
Chapter Forty
Holland Gardens, Kensington, London, quarter moon
Adam turned on the TV to find out what new events had unfolded overnight. He’d stayed up late last night to watch the aftermath of the Trafalgar Square massacre. Everyone was saying that the Prime Minister would have to go. The Head of the Army too, probably. Maybe others. With luck the entire government might fall. It was just like Adam had predicted at the last War Council. Civilization was unravelling before their eyes, and the authorities were doing the dirty work for them.
He flicked to a news channel, fully expecting to see the Prime Minister tendering her resignation. Instead, his own face stared back at him.
The photograph was an old one, taken while he’d been an undergraduate and before he’d embarked on the research trip to Romania. He was wearing his athletics kit, and standing in front of the university running track. The young Adam Knight seemed almost a stranger to him now and it took him a moment to recognize himself. By the time he’d realized it was him, the photo had switched to one of Leanna. A photograph of Samuel completed the trio.
‘According to a statement issued this morning by the Security Service, these three individuals – Adam Knight, Leanna Lloyd and Samuel Smalling – are believed to be the ringleaders of the werewolves,’ explained the news reader. ‘These people are extremely dangerous and should not be approached under any circumstances. The police have set up a dedicated hotline for anyone who has any information relating to these three individuals, and has put hundreds of call handlers in place ready to receive calls from the public. They will be collating, prioritizing and acting on every call received, and hope to place these most wanted suspects under arrest at the earliest possible time.’
Adam continued to stare at the screen in dismay. Most wanted. How had the Security Service managed to get hold of this information? His first thought was James. The traitor. He must have gone running to the authorities and told them everything he knew. Leanna had been smart in moving them out of their old house so promptly. Perhaps he had underestimated her.
Then again, if it had been left up to Adam, he would never have allowed James into their circle at all. He had mistrusted him on sight, and had refused to allow Samuel to bring him home. But the others had over-ruled him. It was always the same. Adam knew best, but fools with louder voices had their way. He would have to put a stop to that.
The loudest fool of all was Warg Daddy, and Leanna was a fool to trust him.
Now look at what had happened. His name and photograph were all over the media. Leanna’s too.
The news footage switched to a live video showing their old house in Greenfield Road surrounded by uniformed police and forensic teams. ‘This is the ordinary house in South London where the three suspects lived,’ announced the reporter. ‘Anti-terrorist police and special forces soldiers from the SAS entered the house early this morning in a pre-dawn raid. A similar raid was also carried out at a science building at Imperial College, London. However, police have confirmed that so far none of the three suspects has been apprehended.’
They had good intelligence then, but they didn’t know everything. If they were searching for Samuel and showing his photo to the public, they obviously didn’t know he was dead.
Adam frowned. Perhaps that meant that James wasn’t the source of the information after all. But however the authorities had got their intelligence, one thing was perfectly clear. Adam was now as good as a prisoner in his own home. Leanna too. Neither of them would be able to set foot in public until the
y had secured their grip on power. At least they had somewhere palatial to spend their time under house arrest.
Adam switched channels to a breakfast talk show. The guests were discussing the current crisis, and the debate was getting heated. People talked openly of werewolves. There was no longer any denial, no references to Beasts or Rippers. One of the guests even used the word apocalypse. The werewolf apocalypse has begun. That obviously wasn’t the official view of the government. Not yet, anyway.
One of the other guests was a scientist, someone Adam had known slightly when he worked with Professor Wiseman at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The scientist used different words to apocalypse. Words like outbreak, quarantine and even containment. Adam snorted with derision. Things had already progressed much too far for containment to be a viable strategy. Appropriate words to use now were epidemic, hysteria and panic.
He flicked through the channels looking for something to cheer him up. One channel had an interview with a London taxi driver. ‘I had a werewolf in the back of my cab the other day,’ the man was saying. ‘Big yellow eyes and everything. Soon as I saw him I knew what he was. I says to him, What big teeth you’ve got, mate. Know what he says back? All the better to eat you with. I ran out that cab as quick as my legs would carry me. You can say what you like about werewolves, but they like a good laugh, they do.’
Adam flicked off the TV. Anyone could see that the situation was now out of control. He’d warned Leanna at the War Council that civilization was unravelling. She had unleashed forces she couldn’t begin to understand. The chemical burns that disfigured her face were a reminder of how easily her carefully-laid plans could go awry. She could hold her War Councils and talk about her tactics and strategies, pretending that she was somehow still in control of what was happening, but surely even she must be starting to wonder whether any plan could survive the unfolding chaos.
No, Leanna had badly underestimated the destructive force of the events she had set in motion. Her days as leader were numbered. It was time for Adam to switch sides. The only question was, which side?
Chapter Forty-One
Cyprus Road, South London, quarter moon
‘There’s something I still don’t understand,’ said Dean. They were out on patrol, Dean at the wheel of the patrol car, scouring the streets for signs of trouble. So far it had all been quiet.
‘What’s that?’ asked Liz. There were so many things she didn’t understand right now that she wouldn’t know where to begin with her list of questions.
‘On New Year’s Eve, what happened after I got hit by that bastard with the iron bar?’ Dean indicated the row of stitches that still tied the skin on his forehead together. ‘How did you manage to deal with the rest of the gang alone?’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Liz. She had been hoping to avoid this discussion. The memory of transforming under the moonlight and attacking those rioters was one that she had no desire to share with anyone.
‘There were four of them, right? And just you and a few kids. I was unconscious, so how did you handle the situation on your own?’
Liz swallowed nervously. She hated to lie to Dean. He was her partner. He needed to trust her. But she couldn’t tell him the whole truth. ‘You took one of them down yourself with tear gas,’ she said. Dean grunted to acknowledge the fact. ‘And one of the kids grabbed the cannister and used it on another.’
‘Okay,’ said Dean. ‘That still leaves two.’
Liz decided to skip the part where she had gone berserk and taken on the rioters with her bare hands. She went straight to the end of the story. ‘The Beast killed them,’ she said. ‘When the wolves came, one of them killed the rest of the thugs.’
‘And left you and the kids unharmed?’
‘Yeah,’ said Liz. She had thought that odd at the time, the way the wolf had sniffed at her and then moved on. Now she understood. The wolf had left her unharmed because it had recognized her as one of its own kind. ‘The other police officers arrived and started shooting before the wolves could attack us,’ she said. It wasn’t entirely a lie.
‘I spoke to one of the kids when I was in the hospital,’ said Dean. ‘Vijay. You know him?’
Liz nodded, afraid of what was coming.
‘He told me that you attacked the vigilantes yourself before the wolves arrived. He couldn’t be certain of what he’d seen, because he lost his glasses in the fighting, but he said you ripped those guys to pieces. He said you tore at their faces with your bare hands.’
‘Ripped them to pieces?’ said Liz quietly. ‘He said that?’
‘With fingernails like razor blades, he told me. Those were his exact words. He seemed pretty shaken up about it, actually.’
Liz showed her short-cut nails to Dean. ‘With these?’ She forced a laugh, but it didn’t seem to convince either of them. ‘That’s not what happened. Vijay said he’d lost his glasses, right? He probably couldn’t see very well. I just used my baton to keep those thugs from harming the kids.’
‘You told me that the wolf killed them.’
‘It did. The wolf came afterwards. I was just keeping the thugs away, to protect the kids. I didn’t really harm them.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Yeah,’ said Liz, defying him to contradict her.
But he didn’t. ‘I trust you, Liz. You know I’d trust you with my life, don’t you?’
‘Yes. I know. And I’d trust you too, Dean. You know I would.’
‘I only want to help. So if you need help, just tell me, okay? Any time.’
‘Sure.’
He swung the steering wheel then, and the car turned off the road and began to bump its way down a narrow dirt track. She hadn’t really been paying attention to where he’d been driving them. Now she looked around. ‘Where are we going?’
‘There’s a place down here. Not a lot of people know about it.’
‘What kind of place?’ she asked, but he said nothing in reply.
They drove to the end of the track and turned into an open area that might once have been used for parking vehicles. Now weeds forced their way through cracks in the buckled asphalt, and abandoned debris lay scattered around. Dean stopped the car in front of a large industrial building.
‘What are we doing here? This place is deserted.’
‘Yeah,’ said Dean. ‘It’s an old factory and warehouse. I used to play here as a kid. This place has been scheduled for demolition for as long as I can remember.’
Liz peered out at the building with curiosity. It was an ugly sight, a stained facade of brick and concrete studded with broken and boarded-up windows. Bushes and even small trees grew up between cracks in the structure. A tangle of rusting pipework crawled up the walls, and blackened chimney stacks teetered high above. The place looked like it was falling apart.
‘Come on,’ said Dean. ‘We’re going inside.’
He got out of the car and Liz followed him with some trepidation. Dean went first to the rear of the car and removed the assault rifle from its secure location in the boot. ‘We’ll be needing this,’ he said.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ she demanded.
Dean gave no answer. Instead he walked across the asphalt to the front of the old factory. A doorway had been barricaded with wooden boards, but not too securely. It didn’t take him long to prise them off, revealing a dark space beyond. ‘Come on,’ he said, disappearing inside the building.
‘Stop being so bloody mysterious,’ called Liz. She stood outside for a moment, furious at Dean’s behaviour. Then reluctantly she followed him inside.
The interior of the building was dim and she could barely see where Dean had gone. A disgusting smell assaulted her as she stepped inside, and she covered her nose so as not to gag. There was filth everywhere. Broken bottles, animal bones, human waste. Someone had made this place their home once, but there was no sign of life now.
She could make out the dim outline of a doorway on the wall opposite and she headed th
rough it, trying to catch up with Dean. She passed down a short corridor and then the building opened up to reveal a vast space, almost the size of a football pitch. This must have been the main factory floor, or else the warehouse. It was impossible to tell now. All around them the concrete walls were covered in spray-painted graffiti. The enormous roof structure of metal girders was still intact, but much of the roofing material had fallen in, leaving the space open to the elements. The floor was concrete, but half overgrown with weeds and shrubs. They were still technically inside the building, but it felt more like outdoors.
Dean smiled at her as she scrabbled over a low pile of bricks and concrete blocks to join him in the middle of the open space. ‘Sorry to be so cloak-and-dagger,’ he said. ‘But if I’d told you why we were coming here, you might not have agreed.’
‘I still might not agree, when you tell me why we did come here,’ said Liz.
Dean leaned the rifle against a corroded steel drum in the middle of the factory floor. He picked up some empty glass bottles and arranged them on top of the drum. ‘I’m going to teach you how to shoot.’
Liz shook her head. ‘No way. I don’t need to know how to use a gun. In any case, that’s totally against regulations. We’d both lose our jobs if anyone found out.’
‘No one’s going to find out,’ said Dean. ‘And I think you do need to know how to use a gun. And soon. Times have changed, Liz, and I don’t know when they’re going to return to normal, if they ever do. There are far worse things that could happen to us now than losing our jobs. And if something awful happens to me I need to know that you can take care of yourself. I need to know that you can take care of Sam and Lily.’
Lycanthropic (Book 2): Wolf Moon (The Rise of the Werewolves) Page 17
