The Curse of the Wolf Girl (70 page)

With that, the Fire Queen roared out the traditional battle cry of her family and charged downhill, followed by her ragged band.

Markus led Kalix and Dominil into Andamair House by one of the service doors at the back of the house. They found themselves in a small warren of corridors once used by servants. Unlike the rest of the great mansion, these corridors were unadorned and quite cramped. They followed Markus up a tiny stone staircase, worn smooth from hundreds of years of use by maids, cooks, and cleaners. As they emerged into a deserted corridor, Kalix was lagging behind. She came to a halt and leaned against the wall.

“What’s wrong?” asked Markus. “Are you hurt?”

Kalix stared at the floor and didn’t answer.

“We have to hurry,” urged Markus, impatiently. “I don’t want the barons sniffing you out; it will lead to more trouble.”

Kalix refused to move.

“Kalix has suffered some sort of mental collapse,” announced Dominil.

Kalix felt quite offended. “No, I haven’t. I’m just sick of everything.”

“Well it’s time to get over it.”

Kalix stared at her angrily. “You just don’t understand how other people work, do you?”

“Possibly not. Anyway, you have things to do.”

Kalix felt uncomfortably like a child being bullied. “What things?”

“You have to talk to your mother. And your exam starts in fourteen hours.”

“My exam? I’m not doing my exam.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve got other things to think about.”

“You can think about them later. You’ve been studying for months, and it would be foolish to let it all go to waste.”

“I’m not doing it.”

“Yes, you are.”

Kalix glared at her cousin. “I remember now. When you told me these stories about Robber Wolf, you were mean afterwards. You threw me out of your room.”

“You were probably hanging round being annoying. I could only be comforting for a limited amount of time.”

“Hurry up,” said Markus. “Our mother will only be up here for a little while.”

Kalix quailed. “I don’t want to see her.”

The door at the end of the corridor opened, and there stood the Mistress of the Werewolves.

“Wait here,” said Markus, and he disappeared into the room to talk to Verasa, leaving Kalix outside.

Kalix sighed deeply. She wasn’t looking forward to her interview with the Mistress of the Werewolves. It was a long time since she’d talked to her mother in private.

The Fire Queen and her small band of warriors hurtled down the slope of the Great Volcano. As Malveria charged into battle, she used the power of the volcano to cast a spell, protecting her followers from the spears and arrows of their enemies and sheltering them from the rain of firebolts that arched through the sky.

The Fire Queen headed straight towards Commander Agripath, who now led his troops in the shape of a great dragon. When she arrived in front of him, there was a brief pause in the tumult of battle. Malveria looked into the dragon’s eyes. “Congratulations on your transformation, Commander. Your family has always made excellent dragons.”

Agripath hadn’t been expecting to encounter the queen and was not inclined to talk. He spread his crimson wings and rose into the air, intending to plummet onto Malveria and rip her apart with his terrifying claws. Malveria didn’t wait for his assault. As soon as he left the ground, she flew towards him. With the power of the volcano coursing through her, Malveria was now at her strongest. She swung her fiery sword at the dragon’s head. Agripath evaded the blow and thrust a talon at the queen. She deflected the blow with her sword, and in doing so, cut the dragon’s scaly skin.

Agripath roared furiously and shook his great tail. A plume of flames shot from his mouth, covering the queen. Malveria dispersed them with a wave of her hand. As the flames cleared, she was frowning angrily. “You have ruined my beautiful clothes.”

Beneath them the slopes of the volcano were covered with smoke and flames. Agripath’s troops were hindered by the queen’s protective spell but still tried to press forward with their superior numbers. Duke DeMortalis yelled out the traditional battle cry of his family as he urged his men to hold firm.

The dragon beat its wings, rising further in the air before once more plunging through the smoke-filled sky. This time the flames that came from his mouth were greater than before. Malveria disappeared in a ball of smoke and flame. It took some time for the blaze to dissipate. When the sky finally cleared, Malveria was still hovering motionless in the air.

“I killed the Three-Headed Dragon of Despair,” she called contemptuously, “and he was a mighty opponent. But you are newly formed and not the dragon he was.” Malveria raised her sword and struck the dragon full on the face, causing it to rear backwards and roar in pain. “Distikka has been a very bad influence on you. And I notice, Agripath, that she seems to have fled the scene, leaving you to take the consequences.”

With that, Malveria struck again. Her flaming blade sliced through Agripath’s neck, and as the dragon’s head tumbled through the blackened air to land crashing in the midst of his troops below, they lost heart and turned to flee.

When the Mistress of the Werewolves found herself facing Kalix, even thinner and more ragged than she’d expected, she found herself lost for words. Kalix was almost beyond her help. The family schism had robbed them of any intimacy they might once have had as mother and daughter. Kalix would probably have said they’d never had any to begin with. “Markus told me why you came here. What are you planning to do now?”

“I’m leaving. Decembrius is giving me a lift back to London.”

Verasa nodded. “That’s probably best.”

“I need to get back for my exam.”

Verasa was surprised. “You’re going to do it? Are you well enough?”

“Dominil says I should do it. She’s probably right. Anyway, if I don’t, then Vex might not do it either. I don’t want her to give up.”

Verasa nodded. At least her daughter was making some sort of effort. “I’m sorry you can’t stay. The council, they’re still angry about…”

Kalix looked at the ground. The attack on her father was one of the many subjects that they couldn’t talk about. Like her laudanum addiction and her eating problems and her life in London. Nothing could be talked about without it leading to a lecture from her mother and a furious argument. They both knew that so left everything unsaid.

“I’m glad to see you safe,” said Verasa, with an effort.

“I have to ask you something,” said Kalix.

“What?”

Kalix felt every muscle tensing up and squirmed with humiliation at what she was about to say. “I need money.”

“Of course. For the journey.”

“More than that. I need quite a lot. I took money from Daniel and Moonglow to pay my fare to Edinburgh.”

“You took? You mean you stole it?”

Kalix nodded. She was unable to look her mother in the face and felt that she’d rather have confronted a room full of enemies than admit to her mother that she’d stolen money from her flatmates.

“Why did you—” began Verasa, angrily, but checked herself. There was, she supposed, no point in starting another argument. But she couldn’t keep the annoyance and disapproval out of her voice. “Do you steal other things?”

“Sometimes,” muttered Kalix. “Not much these days.”

Verasa looked at her ragged daughter and thought of the grand event happening all around them and of the family wealth and of the great castle in the Highlands and wondered again how Kalix could possibly have ended up like this. Her boots and coat were so ragged, her face so sunken. It was shameful, for her and for the clan. Verasa, prepared for emergencies, carried a large handbag with her. Not as fashionable as that carried by her daughter, but a good item, given her as a present by Thrix. She fished around inside it and drew out an elegantly embroidered wallet.

“Here you are.” She handed over a bundle of bills to Kalix, who took them wordlessly and stuffed them in her pocket.

“I should go now. Before anyone catches me.”

“I’ll keep everyone busy for a while,” said her mother. “You can slip out with Decembrius. No one will see you.”

They stood in silence.

“Do you need anything else?”

Kalix shook her head. She still writhed with the humiliation, though she’d expected her mother to lecture her more.

“Thanks for the money.” Kalix hurried from the room and ran off to where Decembrius was waiting for her in the parking lot.

The Fire Queen plucked an arrowhead from her arm, refusing to wince at the pain, though it had embedded itself deeply in her flesh. “We seem to have achieved victory, First Minister.”

First Minister Xakthan nodded very wearily. It had been a ferocious battle, the effects of which had caused a landslide on the northern face of the Great Volcano. Fires raged over the face of the mountain, and tall plumes of choking smoke spiraled into the sky. The crisis was over, for the moment. Malveria, fueled by the Great Volcano, had transformed into a warrior queen, driven back her enemies, dispatched Commander Agripath, and reasserted her control. Troops from her palace guard, stationed some way away at the edge of the capital, were now arriving to finish the operation. As Malveria watched, they marched up the volcano in ordered battalions.

“Rather late in the day,” she observed, “but I understand Distikka had taken control of my lines of communication, and orders could not be got to them in time. It’s fortunate we have not lost our fighting skills, First Minister.”

First Minister Xakthan nodded but remained expressionless.

“Well fought, Duke DeMortalis,” called Malveria. The duke was sitting on a rock some distance away, receiving medical attention. “Did not the duke fight well, First Minister?”

“Yes.”

Malveria looked at him sharply, not liking the tone of his reply. “First Minister, we have just won a famous victory. Yet you seem downcast. Why is this?”

“No reason, mighty Queen.”

Malveria brushed her fingers over the wound on her arm, closing up the skin. “You never were great at concealing your aura. You can’t hide your displeasure from me.”

“I’m not feeling any displeasure.”

The queen raised an eyebrow.

“Very well,” said Xakthan. “We’ve narrowly escaped a crisis that should never have happened. It wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t ruled in such an incompetent manner. Thanks to your reckless abandonment of affairs of state, you very nearly brought the Hiyasta nation to ruin! If you hadn’t been away at fashion shows every day, ignoring your duties as Queen, Distikka would never have been able to stage her rebellion. The blame for this dreadful affair is entirely your own.”

The Fire Queen paled slightly. Xakthan was her most loyal supporter. He’d never delivered a speech remotely resembling this. She felt her aura flicker the merest fraction. She controlled it. “As you say, First Minister, I may possibly have erred slightly. I will take more care in the future. And we will not mention it again.”

“Very well.”

“Now, let us attend to Agrivex.”

* * *

Vex still lay near the top of the volcano. Her eyes were open, but she stared into the distance, and her aura was fading. “Am I going to die?”

“That has not yet been determined. Stay still while I attempt to heal you.”

There was a long silence as the Fire Queen struggled to save her niece’s life. The orange glow that surrounded Malveria flowed from her into her niece, but Vex’s own aura continued to fade.

“Aunt Malvie,” whispered Vex, weakly.

“Yes?”

“I didn’t really get any gold stars at college.”

“I know, dismal niece. But you did your best. Now lie still and be quiet while I attempt to grow you a new foot.”

Malveria remained calm on the outside, but strained mightily inside, and was obliged to summon up a great portion of the power of the Great Volcano, because even a Fire Elemental could not grow a new foot with ease. And even though there were other pressing matters she should be attending to, Malveria expended more power in her attempt to heal Vex than she could ever remember using before.

Kalix kept her head down as she left Andamair House by the servants’ entrance. The
haar
was lifting, and there were a few guests milling around the main entrance, saying their farewells. She hurried past the trucks that had carried equipment into the mansion, making her way towards Decembrius’s car, keen to leave this place as quickly as possible.

“I’m sick of everything” was all she could think.

As she passed by one of the trucks, a hand grabbed her collar and yanked her back.

“Hello Kalix.” Marwanis put her face close to Kalix’s. “You killed Sarapen. If no one else will take revenge for that, I will.”

“I don’t want to fight anymore,” said Kalix.

“I do,” replied Marwanis, and struck Kalix in the face. Even in her human shape, Marwanis was strong. Kalix reeled from the blow. Marwanis hit her again. Kalix sagged.

“You’re really not going to fight back? That’s fine with me.” Marwanis punched Kalix a third time, this time causing blood to erupt from her nose. Kalix fell on one knee from the force of the blow. Marwanis changed into her werewolf form and then kicked out. Her taloned foot caught Kalix in her ribs, sending her flying backwards. She slammed against the side of a car and lay on the ground. Marwanis advanced.

Kalix, who was sick of everything and didn’t want to fight, knew that Marwanis would kill her if she did nothing. She also knew that if she transformed, she’d kill Marwanis. She wouldn’t be able to stop herself. Then she’d be in more trouble for killing a member of the Great Council; trouble that would never end. Kalix wondered if she should just lie on the ground and do nothing, but as Marwanis bent over her, she transformed as her werewolf nature took over. She sprang at Marwanis and was about to fasten her jaws round her neck when she was again grabbed from behind and hauled backwards.