The Curse of the Wolf Girl (13 page)

The door had been bolted again by the hunters as they chased Kalix inside, but weakened as it was, it wouldn’t keep out the police for more than a few seconds. Kalix took one last agonized look at her dead lover then ran back to the kitchen. For the second time, she exited via the window. Her werewolf agility allowed her to twist in midair and catch hold of the drainpipe. She slid safely down to the ground then vaulted onto a garage roof. From there, she hurried across to the next rooftop. With her acute senses, Kalix could still hear raised voices in the flat below as the police swarmed in. She leapt towards the next slate-gray roof, but even as she traveled in midair, she sensed something that immediately caught her attention. In the street below, almost concealed behind a parked van, stood Duncan Douglas-MacPhee. Or so it seemed to Kalix, though she only saw his face for a fraction of a second. When Kalix landed, she looked again, but there was no sign of him. The young werewolf longed to run back and find out what the Douglas-MacPhee was doing there, but at that moment another two police vans arrived in the street below. She had to leave. By the time police officers climbed out onto the roof, Kalix MacRinnalch was far away, hidden in the darkness, still covered in the blood of her victims.

Queen Malveria, First Minister Xakthan, and Councilor Distikka walked through the gloriously illuminated Corridor of Splendor that connected the council chambers to the queen’s own reception rooms at the palace. The Corridor of Splendor was encrusted with diamonds. The Fire Elementals had a great many diamonds of white, of blue, and of yellow. Though valuable, they were not rare enough for the queen to wear them in her realm, and she saved her diamond jewelry for visits to Earth. If she wanted to impress her fellow Elementals, the queen wore her Santorini necklace.

The queen’s heels clacked on the hard floor, in contrast to the soft tread of Xakthan, who was dressed as always in the restrained court-attire of the queen’s councilors. The small figure of Distikka tramped along behind them. She wore boots that were more suited to warfare than palace meetings. That was unusual, but Distikka was an unusual woman. She was clad in a shirt of dark chain-mail. An empty scabbard hung by her side. It was forbidden to carry weapons in the palace, and Distikka occasionally gave the impression that she resented it. She had, after all, been promoted to the council by the queen after her efficient handling of the dissatisfied citizens of Cho, a village in the western desert. This had left most of the citizens dead, but, as the queen said, it had certainly ended the problem. Distikka was now the only female Elemental on the queen’s council, and Malveria had given her the title of personal advisor. She was not a popular figure among the other councilors, but she was acknowledged to be efficient.

First Minister Xakthan was very popular. He’d always been a loyal ally of the queen. It made it all the more galling that Xakthan now seemed reluctant to let drop a matter that she would much rather have avoided.

“First Minister,” said Malveria. “Did I not make it clear that I didn’t want to discuss the succession again?”

“I intended not to raise the matter. Our agenda was to discuss the site for our new armaments foundry, but…” He trailed off.

The queen frowned, as she had done for much of the meeting. While discussing the factory, it had been mentioned by some councilor or other that the Sword-Makers Guild, loyal supporters of the queen, had expressed concerns in private as to whether or not she was ever going to produce an heir. That had started the whole discussion again, much to the queen’s annoyance. She didn’t enjoy hearing her advisory council discussing possible suitors.

“One is not a prize heifer to be bred,” the queen had said with displeasure.

It had quieted the council, but the problem wasn’t going away. For some reason, the entire Hiyasta nation, from the first minister to the lowest serf, seemed to have developed an obsession with the heir to the throne.

It might have been better, reflected the queen, if she hadn’t slaughtered every one of her surviving relatives after the war. There might be an heir in place by now. But it had been such a bloody affair, with all of her relatives leading armies and factions against her, that slaughtering them all seemed the natural thing to do. If she had left any of them alive, you could be sure they’d have led a rebellion by now or tried to seize control of the Great Volcano, something only a member of the royal family could do. Having left no members of her family alive, Malveria was very secure in her power over the volcano.

“If the queen doesn’t want to discuss the succession, then the council should be quiet about it,” declared Distikka.

The queen smiled. It was an opinion Distikka had voiced strongly several times in recent council meetings in the face of far more experienced and senior councilors. The queen appreciated her support. Distikka might be an odd character, with her small stature, her chain-mail, and her reputation for military violence, but she was proving to be a powerful supporter. She didn’t take any nonsense from these elderly council members who seemed to want the queen to breed with the first half-suitable aristocrat who came along.

The Fire Queen was about to bid a gracious farewell to her advisors when she noticed her first minister raising his eyebrows. “Why are you raising your eyebrows in that pointed manner?”

“I believed we had concluded the meeting early in order for the queen to deliver an opinion on the timing of the next Fire Festival?”

The queen pursed her lips. It was true. She’d brought the meeting to an early close on the pretext that she had to perform those important calculations. The Fire Festival, or Vulcanalia, was an important event, but its precise timing was shrouded in mystery, requiring a combination of mathematics and divination that only the queen could perform. Malveria, however, was far keener to get on with the business of importing her new evening attire. Bringing clothes from Thrix’s fashion house into the realm of the Fire Elementals also required expertise and sorcerous skill. A few ill-chosen words in the summoning spell, and one could easily end up with scorched fabric and missing buttons.

“Eh…other matters are pressing,” said the queen. “Kindly remove that stern look from your face, First Minister. The calculations will be done in good time, I assure you.”

“Time is pressing, and they can’t be done by anyone else.”

The queen tapped her foot on the diamond floor. She really should get on with making the calculations for the Vulcanalia, but she yearned to see her new evening gown. Thrix’s drawings had been really fabulous.

“I can perform the necessary calculations,” said Distikka.

Xakthan looked at her dubiously. “You can?”

Distikka nodded. She had short dark hair, rather boyishly cut. It was a style the queen herself had worn, a long time ago, during the war, though for many years now, her hair had been long and perfectly styled.

“Splendid,” cried Malveria. “Well, Xakthan, no need to worry. Distikka will make the required calculations while I attend to other, more pressing business. Good day.”

With that, the queen turned on her heel and departed swiftly, leaving behind her a rather discontented first minister.

“It’s all very irregular,” complained Xakthan, and he sighed. “The queen has always calculated the date of the Fire Festival before.”

The first minister was troubled. He wasn’t the only councilor who’d noticed that the queen seemed to be paying less and less attention to matters of state.

Malveria was already in her dressing room, pulling a dress from Thrix’s warehouse through the dimensions. Her ladies in waiting gasped with pleasure as it appeared. The queen was gratified. It was just what she needed for her upcoming evening of whist. She’d suffered some uncomfortable moments at the card tables recently, but the dress revived her spirits. She felt she was capable of anything while wearing such a beautiful garment.

Adding to the queen’s pleasure, today was one of the three days each week that Agrivex was absent from the palace.

“It is such a relief to be able to dress with the certain knowledge that my idiot niece will not barge in at some inappropriate moment,” said Malveria to her nine dressers. They nodded in agreement, though none of them spoke. Preparing the queen for an evening engagement was a serious matter, and there was no time for idle talk.

It hadn’t been a good day for Moonglow. Believing that the weather was improving, she’d worn a thin black jacket to college. It was new—or rather, new from a charity shop—and she’d wanted to show it off. Unfortunately, after the early morning sun, the day had turned very cold with some drizzle. Moonglow had shivered though her journey to college. Once there she realized she’d forgotten to update the file on the Sumerian poetry she was translating and she’d left her handwritten notes at home. Moonglow’s tutor held her in high regard and didn’t think for a moment that she hadn’t done the work, but Moonglow still felt bad.

Making things worse, Daniel had apparently decided to be in a bad mood all day. Though this mood seemed to be directed mainly at Moonglow, he perversely chose to spend every available minute with her, rather than leaving her alone. When Moonglow met her friend Alicia for lunch, Daniel stood resolutely beside her as she lined up at the canteen, muttering about what a poor choice of food she’d made. Then he sat with them but spent the entire time in angry silence. It was a trying performance, one of Daniel’s worst.

Moonglow knew why Daniel was in a bad mood. He was frustrated by her refusal to countenance having a relationship. She’d been tempted to inform him that hanging around a girl being grumpy all the time wasn’t the best way to encourage a romance, but she refrained. Really, Moonglow felt very sorry about the whole thing. She knew she’d been close to going out with Daniel. She’d given him some quite obvious signals. Then she’d abruptly ceased all contact, as it were, without explanation. She could understand why he felt frustrated.

She wondered if she should just tell Daniel about her bargain with the Fire Queen, but she hesitated. If she did tell him, she could imagine Daniel making things worse by doing something foolish like insulting Malveria. That could be a disaster.

Though King’s College was a prestigious university, there were parts of it that were surprisingly dilapidated. As Moonglow made her way into one of the older buildings, she found herself walking through a large puddle. Round the next corridor, she came across several workmen standing outside her tutor’s room, struggling to contain the overflow from a leaking pipe in the ceiling. Her tutor was standing beside them, a resigned expression on his face.

“I told the dean these pipes were about to go,” he said to the workmen. “Tutorial’s canceled,” he added to Moonglow.

Moonglow decided to go home. It hadn’t been a very good day, and it was probably wise to give up, particularly as it would allow her to sneak away from college without Daniel catching up. As she made her way through the rain to the tube station, she wondered if they’d now be a couple had it not been for the Fire Queen’s bargain. It was possible.

Moonglow’s last relationship had been with Markus MacRinnalch. Markus was now Thane, but there had been a time when he was in such a poor state of mental and physical health that he’d been fit for nothing. Moonglow’s love and attention had helped him recover. As Markus was a charismatic figure and beautiful and a werewolf—which was quite thrilling—Moonglow had quickly fallen in love with him. Unfortunately, Markus had discarded her as soon as his health returned. It had been a shattering experience. Perhaps, after such an emotional disaster, it would be best not to have a boyfriend for a while. Or perhaps it would be best to have a nice stable boyfriend like Daniel who wouldn’t do anything crazy. Moonglow wasn’t sure. However, the bargain with Malveria had ended the possibility, so there was no point even thinking about it.

The days were still short, and darkness had fallen by the time Moonglow climbed out of the tube station at Kennington. She shivered as she walked home through the backstreets of terraced houses. When she entered the living room, she put her bag down with a weary sigh and felt automatically for the light switch. As the light went on, she froze in shock. Kalix was lying on the floor, unconscious. This wasn’t a total surprise. Kalix had done it before, usually as result of too much laudanum. But something worse had obviously happened, because there was an ugly wound on her hand, and blood was congealing around it on the carpet.

The werewolves of the Great Council of the MacRinnalch clan sat in the long stone chamber at the heart of Castle MacRinnalch that had hosted their meetings for centuries. A huge log fire burned at one end of the chamber. Torches flickered on the walls, and the stonework was draped with banners in the dark green MacRinnalch tartan, some of them very ancient. They sat around a huge, circular oaken table, the heavy varnish of which could not disguise the damage caused by werewolf claws at past meetings. Over the centuries, there had been many an angry scene in the chamber and many powerful fists banged on the table in anger. Only a few months had passed since the ill-tempered encounter when Sarapen had left the chamber in a fury after failing to secure enough votes to make him Thane.

Since then, meetings had been more peaceful. The bad feelings had begun to dissipate. Though the three barons had all come out against Markus as Thane, Verasa had welcomed them back at the end of the affair. The Mistress of the Werewolves had many years experience in soothing angry werewolf barons. While she regretted the loss of life the feud had caused, she didn’t really resent their rebellion. A little dissension in the ranks of the clan and its allies wasn’t such a terrible thing, on occasion. It helped to clear the air. Now Barons MacPhee and MacGregor had almost returned to their normal state of conviviality. Only Baron MacAllister still displayed any hostility, and he was very young. He’d soon learn to reconcile himself to the realities of life.