Skulk (18 page)

“Meg!” Addie wailed.

Pain exploded in my shoulder and I toppled sideways, a pigeon’s claws digging deep into my fur. Addie took a slippery run up and leapt, trailing drops of Ameera’s blood through the air. She and the pigeon fell together, splashing and sticking. I got up and looked back down the corridor – Addie about to bite down hard on the pigeon’s grey head, the fog swirling through the back window, and the pigeon itself... it was thin, angular. Though it was spattered with blood and flapping madly I could make out the sleekness of its feathers.

“Addie, no!” I screamed. It was enough to make Addie hesitate and I dropped the stone from my jaws to snatch at her tail. “Don’t hurt it! That’s my mother.”

The pigeon looked at me, its mad red eyes like mirrors reflecting the blood, and I gasped. Did she know my voice? Did she know it was me?

She took off in a great flapping of wings and dived for the stone.

“No! Mum, no!” I threw my body in front of her and her claws raked down across my back. “Addie,” I gasped, “The stone, get it out of here!”

Addie snatched up the stone in her jaws. She gave a whimper and shuddered, but took off for the open window. I threw Mum off my back and swiped, catching her on the wing. She landed in the blood, opened her beak and gave a vicious hiss.

“I’m trying,” I screamed. “I’m trying not to hurt you! After everything–”

I stopped. I didn’t have time for this. The fog was rolling through the red mire towards me.

I turned and leapt for the window after Addie.

The cool, clear air burned the back of my throat as I pushed up and out onto the front steps of the school. A razor-sharp rainbow of scents burst across my muzzle, cars and trees and people and electricity.

Addie was waiting for me on the pavement, dripping and trembling, her eyes wide and her teeth audibly chattering against the surface of the stone.

“Go,” I breathed. “Go go go.”

We washed off the blood in the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain.

I’d led us towards Hyde Park, hoping that we’d lose the pigeons as we crossed through the crowded streets of Notting Hill and negotiated the traffic circling the park. I don’t quite know when we did lose them. But when we leapt through the iron bars of the fence and huddled together under the bushes that lined the park, there was no flapping or cooing, and no tentacles of fog crept through the leaves.

I tried to lie down gently, but my legs went from under me and I sprawled on my side, my chest heaving.

I’d known Hyde Park like the back of my hand since I was about six years-old and I used to spend Sundays trying to lose Gail among the hydrangeas. It was the best spot to loiter on a sunny afternoon when I was pretending to be staying late at school. Sometimes I’d come alone with a sketchpad, sometimes with Ameera and Jewel and we’d sit on our coats by the Serpentine, surreptitiously drinking rum straight from a bottle and feeding Waitrose bagels to the ducks.

Ameera was gone. There was no point trying to tie the bright, bubbly party girl I’d known to the mess the fog had left behind. She was gone forever. The sheer weight of it seemed to fill the world, pressing me down into the earth. She’d never pester me to be more fun again. She’d never pass another exam while hungover. She’d never have another hangover. She’d never be at any more of Jewel’s recitals, or make fun of the Duchess, or coordinate her handbag with her shoes.

In the morning, there would be screaming, and sirens. The school would close. Maybe for good. There would be reporters, press conferences, calls for witnesses. There might be public hysteria. There would be funerals.

I wondered whether Jewel would ever get over it.

I wanted to lie in the earth with them and never get up, but then I looked over at Addie and dragged myself to my feet. If we were going to lie down and die, we might as well have given ourselves up to the fog. I’d dragged us both through that horror; I might as well drag us a little further.

I led her to the Diana Fountain, by the banks of the Serpentine. The thin, cool stream of the fountain shimmered over a constantly changing pattern of wet stone and brick in a looping ribbon, sparkling in the moonlight and the shifting headlight beams of the cars crawling along Exhibition Road. I guess it was supposed to be a metaphor for the Princess’ life, but all I was thinking about right then was which part would make the best fox bath.

The blood on our paws had long since stopped leaving prints behind on the pavement, and now it was sticky, flaking and clumping in my fur.

Addie and I waded into one of the deepest fast-flowing corners and she dropped the stone into an eddy with a little whimper. Her whole body shook.

I looked at the stone, its deep blue covered with a film of blood.

It had fallen in the lake of blood.

And I’d made Addie carry it all the way here in her mouth.

“I’m so sorry,” I murmured.

Addie just whined and lay down in the gently trickling water.

I put my head down and rolled over. The water was cool on my fur. It clung to me in sparkling droplets and I writhed and splashed, trying to coat myself, to wash away the feeling that my skin and fur were being tugged together in sticky brown handfuls. Thin streams of blood peeled off me and shimmered away with the flow of the fountain.

Addie lapped up the clean water, running it over her muzzle, then turned and rubbed her head against the shining bricks.

My paws were going numb from the cool water, but slowly parts of me started to feel clean again. My heart ached for soap.

Addie and I didn’t speak.

When I thought I’d done all I could do, I stepped out of the fountain and trotted a little way across the grass to shake myself off, keeping Addie and the stone in the corner of my eye.

Blood welled up under my paws, flowing thickly between the blades of grass, and I jumped back, a scream forming behind my teeth...

It was so real. But a split second later, there was nothing there. Just grass and dark earth. I swallowed the scream and shook myself again, as if I could shake off the memory. There was nothing here but the long lawns, the dark skeletons of trees and the whisper of the water as it washed away the worst of the horror from Addie’s back and cleaned the stone.

I trotted back to the side of the fountain and gazed down at the stone. The blood had mostly gone now, but it still looked almost black in the dim, shimmering light. The star glinted like a diamond at the bottom of a deep well.

Addie got to her paws. She took a few faltering steps downstream to stand beside the stone.

She seemed weak, and looked half-drowned. I wanted so badly to gather her to me and wrap her up in a warm towel. I fought off the urge to tell her everything was going to be all right. I couldn’t find the words for the lie.

She dripped shakily into the water for a few seconds, regarding the stone in silence.

Then she raised her head.

“That ain’t ours, you know.”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s not our stone. Don said our stone was a ruby.” She grabbed the stone out of the water and plonked it down on the edge of the fountain. It shimmered, deep and mystical and very definitely blue.

“But…” I opened my mouth, closed it again, and waited for my brain to stop spinning. “But if this is… So where – and who–?”

“What the hell was Ben doing with someone else’s stone?” Addie said, cutting through my waffle.

“Whose
is
it?” I croaked. “And where’s ours?”

“I don’t even care to be honest.” Addie hopped out of the fountain and shook herself, splattering the grass and me with cold droplets. “I’ve had enough of this shit.”

I nodded. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have brought you into this. You don’t have to – you shouldn’t have to see any of this, I mean, you’re...” the words
just a kid
wisely revolted on my lips before I could say them.

Addie’s ears pricked up and her eyes narrowed.

“Meg. I dunno what you’re talking about, but I’m talking about getting off our arses and going and messing that bitch’s shit
up
.”

I blinked at her.

“I’m serious, she is one sick, nasty piece of rat crap and I say we go round her place right now and make sure she never, ever does
that
ever again.”

I had to take a second. I sat back on my haunches and rubbed my paw over my muzzle.

I felt shamed, more than anything. I’d underestimated Addie, but also... I had no idea how we could get to Victoria. None. I wanted to make all this right, but I hadn’t a clue where to begin. Addie’s pure, disgusted drive made me feel sluggish and dithery.

“The Conspiracy won’t help us,” I muttered.

Addie hissed through her teeth. “Bunch of old white men in a tower whose most important job is giving guided tours to the Queen’s bling. They wouldn’t help us even if they weren’t crooked.”

“I thought I could take it back to the Skulk and we could hide it somewhere, but if it’s not even ours… We can’t go and face off with Victoria until we’ve found somewhere safe for this,” I said, pawing warily at the sapphire. “This is what Victoria wants,” I added, when Addie shifted impatiently. “I’m not taking it anywhere
near
the Shard.”

“Hey, d’you think she’s already got ours?” Addie asked. “I mean, it’s been missing for weeks and she’s got to want to collect them all. For that ultimate weapon thing, right?”

“All the more reason to keep this out of her hands,” I said. “Hopefully if we can find out which group of shifters it belongs to, they’d be able to keep it safe.”

“Hopefully,” said Addie dryly. “Look, I think I know a place where it’ll be safe for a bit. But I don’t know if it’s the
best
plan ever.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, well. It depends. On how you feel about taking the big giant sapphire you’ve just literally waded through blood to get back, and handing it to a jewel thief.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I crouched in the shadows between a crumbling brick wall and a rusty Mini with no tyres or engine, with the stone between my paws, watching the end of the alley for any sign of James Farringdon.

A railway bridge loomed over us, with four large archways underneath that had been converted into storage spaces. Every so often a train would hurtle across the top, clattering out towards the East coast or back into the City. The noise was like a moving, living creature sweeping past, shaking me to my aching bones and leaving a cloud of sparks and dust in its wake.

The stale scent of old petrol, metal and rotting wood filled this place, but it was a comforting, familiar kind of decay. I wasn’t exactly Banksy, but I’d spent my share of time hanging out in London’s industrial nooks and crannies, and this was a perfect example.

The arches showed little sign of criminal activity, or any activity at all. They looked pretty much like any other railway arches, like there would be nothing inside but old car parts and dust.

I spotted the first sign myself, scanning the place on a totally different instinct from the one that made me sniff out the ground and turn around three times before settling down to wait. Even with the fox’s dim eyesight, I could make out the black gleam of glass hidden in the corners of the archways. I instantly marked this place off on my mental map:
Looks like a great location, quiet and deserted, four great matching canvases, but too much CCTV. Not worth the risk.

Addie had to point out the other clue that this place might not be what it seemed. I’d actually seen it, and not realised what it meant besides the fact that all four of the arches would make great blank slates for paintings.

I couldn’t see a door in any one of them.

I said I would’ve assumed there was one somewhere else, and Addie smirked and told me that was exactly the point.

A long time passed as I lay in the little gap, with Addie’s warm body breathing next to mine. I wondered what time it was, and how long it’d been since I last slept. Even the roar of the trains started to sound oddly soothing, the longer we stayed there. The stone was smooth and cool when I laid my head on it.

There was a pigeon right in front of me. It didn’t attack. It just stared at me with one red eye. I could see myself, in human form, reflected in its mad depths. Then the black space began to fill up with red, and the red spilled over, and blood began to pour from the eye of the pigeon and flood out over me. It was up to my waist. It was up to my neck. It lapped at my lips and poured down my throat, choking me. It tasted of old petrol.

Addie nudged me awake.

“He’s here,” she said, getting up and arching her back stiffly. “Let me do the talking, OK, Princess?”

I shrugged, picked up the stone and followed her, bleary-eyed, hanging back as she stepped boldly out into the pool of yellow street-light.

James Farringdon was slinking down the alley in fox form, the little black bag between his teeth.

His whole body flinched when he spotted us and he crouched back as if to run.

“Jimmy, it’s me,” Addie said.

James paused. His body language shifted, his shoulders slinking forwards a little into a stance that could flow easily into running or leaping at us, fangs bared. He growled.

“Adeola, if you’ve brought that bigoted cur down here...”

“No, I wouldn’t! Look, it’s just Meg. You remember Meg?”

I stepped forwards. James’ head tipped to one side.

“The new girl,” he said. His eyes flickered to the jewel in my mouth.

“She’s with me,” said Addie.

“And you’re both with the Skulk,” James said. “So why should I believe she won’t betray me to Olaye the first chance she gets?”

“Because we need your help,” Addie said. “Also because I say so, you paranoid twat,” she added.

James gave us a toothy, canine grin. His stance finally relaxed and he trotted up to us, the bag swinging from his jaws, as if he’d never thought we were anything but his best friends.

“Darling,” he said, brushing his muzzle against Addie’s, and then – to my surprise – against mine. I gripped the stone a little tighter in my jaws but he seemed to be pretending he hadn’t noticed it.