Lupine Howl: The Complete First Series (All 8 books) Page 10

  I turn and walk away. The wolf will return to the pit, and I must be ready. Yet I don't know my enemy fully. For one thing, I still don't know what he did to deserve being thrown into the pit and forced to martyr himself in such a way. It was said that he killed other wolves and that this was why he was chosen to enter the pit, but I have known wolves who killed, maimed and destroyed countless lives and they were always forgiven. What did this wolf do, to deserve such a terrible fate? What was the true secret of the wolf in the pit?

  9.

  “The wolf in the pit was long though to be a legend,” says Olivia, as we walk along the dark tunnel. Matt is a few steps ahead, using a small torch to see where we're going. “We heard that when the werewolves abandoned their home beneath London, they left behind a single mad wolf to stand guard and prevent us humans from entering their world and stealing their throne. But we never believed the story was true until...”

  We walk on in silence for a moment.

  “Until what?” I ask.

  Olivia sighs. “Until maybe ninety years ago, when some Greystone agents were sent down here to investigate. Nothing was heard from them for days, but finally their bodies were discovered by the river. It was clear that they'd been killed by a wolf. At that point, our predecessors began to consider the possibility that the story of the wolf in the pit was true”.

  “And now you know it's true,” I say, “what happens?”

  “We have to find out how the wolf escaped, and we have to capture it and put it back in the pit,” she says. “The wolf has to be there. We have to make sure that this can never happen again”.

  “Stop,” says Matt, and we stop behind him. He stands in the darkness, shining the torch ahead.

  “What did you hear?” Olivia asks.

  “Nothing,” he says, “but do you smell something?”

  We stand there in silence. “We're in an old sewer,” I whisper. “It's hard not to smell stuff”.

  “Something fresh,” says Matt. “Something marking its territory”. He looks around us. “We just crossed a line. We just entered its territory”.

  “Do we turn back?” I ask.

  Matt shakes his head. “No, but we must be aware that we're now on the wolf's turf. It will act to defend that turf if it detects us”.

  “The best thing,” says Olivia as the three of us start walking again, “would be if the wolf is not here right now. That way, we can examine the pit and find out how it escaped, then we can work out how to get it back”.

  “But if it's mad,” I say, “is there any point putting it back?”

  “Better than no wolf at all,” says Matt, up ahead.

  “And if the wolf catches up to us first?” I ask.

  “That's why you have the gun,” Matt says.

  I put my hand on the gun in my pocket. Matt, Olivia and I each have a gun loaded with six silver bullets. Though they won't kill the wolf, the bullets will slow him down long enough for us to escape.

  “And what about Duncan?” I ask.

  “He'll find us,” Olivia says. “He might even be following us now. Duncan is a very smart wolf. He's surprised us both in the past, he's certainly capable of pulling something out of the hat again this time. That is...” She looks at me. “I mean, if you're sure you can't contact him?”

  “Sorry,” I say. “I don't have his mobile number”.

  We reach a junction in the tunnel. Matt stops and looks both ways. “Left,” he says finally, then he turns to us. “We're almost there. Also...” He takes a deep breath. “About two minutes ago, I became aware that we're being followed”.

  “By who?” Olivia asks.

  Matt shrugs. “One of them. Duncan or the other wolf. I'm assuming it's Duncan, because the other wolf would probably have just attacked by now. Still, best to be on your guard in case... well, in case anything happens, okay?”

  We start walking again.

  “I should probably tell you that no team has ever returned entirely complete from the pit,” says Olivia, keeping her gaze focused on the darkness ahead.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  She takes a deep breath. “Whenever a team has gone to the tunnel,” she says slowly, “at least one of them has always died”.

  I feel a chill in my blood. We walk on in silence, and I triple-check that the gun is in my pocket and is ready to grab if necessary. How exactly did I end up in this situation? I glance over my shoulder at the darkness behind us. Duncan, is that you back there, following us? And even if it is, how afraid should I be?

  “Behind this door, we reach the pit,” says Matt. He turns to us. “You should both know what that means. It means there's no turning back. What we find is almost certainly going to be an empty pit. We have to get in there, find out what happened, get out and come up with a plan that'll get the wolf back into the pit”.

  He pushes the large wooden door open to reveal a round stone chamber, in the centre of which is an open hole. As we walk towards the hole, I see that it's about thirty metres deep, with nothing at the bottom but a brick floor and some vegetation. There's no sign of a wolf.

  I turn suddenly as the door closes behind us. Olivia smiles. “It's okay,” she says. “Let's just do our job and get out of here”.

  I look down into the pit. “How long was he alone down there?”

  “Centuries,” says Matt.

  “What did he eat?” I ask.

  “Not a lot,” Olivia replies, walking to the edge of the pit. “Werewolves can go for many hundreds of years without eating, but they do end up being rather hungry at the end of it. Hence his latest rampage through London”.

  “Okay,” says Matt, “enough chatting. Jess, you and I are going down”.

  As I turn to him, shocked, I see that Olivia has pulled a rope from her case and is tying it to a ring at the edge of the pit.

  “There are scratch marks,” Matt says, pointing out cracks in the stone. “He must have climbed up, digging his claws into the stone one by one. It must have taken him years”.

  Olivia has the rope fastened, and she throws the other end down into the pit.

  “We just need to go down and see if there are any clues,” Matt says. “You okay with that?”

  “Can't I wait up here?” I ask, looking at them both.

  “No,” says Olivia, rather hurriedly. “Matt needs help gathering samples, and I'm sorry but we can't trust you to be the one up here with the rope. No offence”.

  I look down into the pit. It's so dark down there, the only light coming from Mark's torch as he shines it down. “We'll be five minutes,” he says. “Max. Okay?”

  Every part of me is screaming to get out of here, but I figure the best way to get out might just be to do what they say. “Okay,” I say, my voice wavering slightly. “Let's get this over with”.

  “I'll go first,” says Matt. He grabs onto the rope and starts inching his way down. When he's about halfway, I take a deep breath and step towards the edge.

  “Just so you know,” says Olivia, “I do appreciate how hard this is for you”.

  “Are you sure you don't want to go down instead?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “You understand that I can't let you be in charge of the rope, don't you?”

  “But you expect me to trust you while I go down there?”

  “It's a bum deal,” she says. “But we have to find out what happened at the bottom of the pit, and Matt needs help”. She smiles. “Come on, the sooner you get down there, the sooner you can get back up and we'll know what to do. Deal?”

  I nod slowly. “Deal,” I say with uncertainty.

  It takes me a few minutes to inch my way down the rope, but finally I arrive at the bottom with Matt. He's already started taking samples from the soil and examining the cracks in the wall.

  “These are old,” he says, turning to me with a look of alarm in his eyes. “The wolf escaped from the pit quite some time ago, he's been loose for a while”. He hands me the torch. “I need you to hold this while I
do some tests”.

  I aim the torch at the cracks and Matt slowly scrapes away some dust.

  “What's that gonna tell you?” I ask.

  “For one thing,” Matt says, “it'll show us exactly how long ago the wolf started to climb out. For another, it'll help us come up with a way to make sure he never manages to get out again. Once we've got him back in, that is”.

  I look over at the side of the pit, and see a small door.

  “What's that?” I ask.

  “That's the door to the Lost Throne,” Matt says. “It's the only way in, and the only way out. That's what the wolf has been guarding”.

  I stare at the door for a moment. “How do we know he's not just in there?” I ask.

  Matt smiles. “He's not. Trust me. Take a look if you want”.

  “Me?” I ask, surprised.

  “It's your only chance,” Matt says. “Probably the only chance any human will ever have again”.

  As Matt continues to examine the walls, I walk to the door and slowly open it. Matt comes over and shines the torch inside, and I see a large chamber with nothing in it but what appears to be a stone throne at the far end.

  “This used to be the throne room of the werewolves,” Matt says. “Long ago. Now it's just abandoned”.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “There was a deal,” Matt says. “The werewolves agreed to leave London in exchange for their continued safety”. We stare at the empty room for a moment. “Pretty tragic,” he continues, then he pulls the door shut and turns to me. “We should get out of here”.

  We walk back over to the centre of the pit.

  “Hold the torch for me,” Matt says. As I shine the light at the floor, Matt collects some scrapings and puts them into a small bag. “We're done,” he says, and we turn to grab the rope.

  But the rope is gone.

  Matt glances at me, a clear look of concern on his face.

  “Hey!” he calls up. “Send the rope back down!”

  Nothing. No word from Olivia. No sound at all.

  “Hey!” Matt calls out.

  “Where is she?” I ask.

  “Hang on,” Matt says. “Olivia! Hey! The rope!”

  Silence, and then slowly we see Olivia peer over the edge of the pit, a look of horror on her face.

  “Send the rope down!” Matt says. “We don't have long!”

  Olivia stares at us. “I can't send the rope down,” she says. “And you know why”.

  “What's going on?” I ask Matt, but he just looks at me with a clear sense of panic.

  “I can't bring you up,” Olivia shouts down. “Because you're the wolf! I can't let you out of the pit!”

  10.

  He is here. Standing alone in the dark, I can sense his approach. He is angry, and he is set for revenge. He has been keeping his emotions in check, but now he is turning, ready to strike once again. And this time he is more powerful than ever, because he has had time to heal completely. I know now that I cannot possibly kill him. He is too strong, too determined to live. He has a life force that I cannot summon. This is it. One of us will live, and one of us will die.

  I start walking through the darkness. Though I can see almost nothing in this low light, I know exactly where I am going. I am returning to the chamber, to the pit, where I must ensure that he remains for eternity. I know that my Master would approve of my mission, that he would recognise that I am finally facing up to my responsibilities. The pit has to contain a wolf. And if the obvious candidate will not take the role, perhaps someone else will have to be entombed there.

  I can hear them now. Talking. Arguing. Not understanding that their enemy is one of them. They are confused, and desperate. Even the wolf himself does not know his own name right now. That moment will come, though. And while I profess to have no care for humans, there is a part of me that wants to ensure that Jess survives. I can't even explain it. It's just... for the first time, ever, I care about the life of a human.

  My Master would kill me if he knew.

  11.

  Matt stares at me. “You can't be,” he says slowly.

  “Me?” I ask. “There's no way I'm a wolf”. I can't believe that he could even be considering the possibility that I'm something so bizarre, so inhuman. But he doesn't say anything, he just keeps looking at me. “I saw the wolf!” I shout at him. “I ran from him! He tried to kill me, I can't be him!”

  “Displacement,” he says, clearly shocked. “You can't acknowledge that you're the wolf, so while you're in wolf form you create a fantasy to cover the fact up. While you thought you were running from the wolf, you were actually becoming the wolf yourself”. From the way he's staring at me, I can see that he's starting to believe it, he's looking at me as if I'm some kind of monster.

  I shake my head. “That's bollocks,” I say. “I'd know if I was a fucking werewolf”.

  “Not necessary,” Matt says, stepping back. He's eyeing me suspiciously, as if he's making some great realisation. “Werewolves don't always know what they really are. We've studied them. They can suffer from denial, and...” His voice trails off as he just stares at me.

  “I can't be a wolf,” I insist. “Look at me! There's just no way I could be anything other than... Look at me!” I hold out my hands. “I know what I am!”

  “It's not her!” Olivia shouts down.

  Matt looks up. “What?”

  “It's you!” Olivia says. “You're the wolf!”

  Matt stares up at her. “You know that's not true,” he says. “You know me! You've know me for years! Let us up so we can talk about this”.

  Olivia stares at us for a moment, then she pulls back and we can't see her.

  “We have to get out of here,” I say to Matt. “I don't know what's happening, but we have to get out of here, right?” No response. I grab Matt's arm. “How do we get out of here?” I ask.

  Matt nods. “Fuck,” he says, staring at the walls of the pit. “Fuck”.

  I look around, trying to work out if there's another way out of here. There's the door through to the other room, but I don't think that's exactly a way back up to the surface. Unless Olive sends the rope back down, we're stuck here.

  “Fuck,” Matt says again, a note of real anger and desperation in his voice.

  I turn to him. “How do we get out of here?” I ask.

  “I don't know,” he says, turning to me. “I really don't know! I can't remember!”

  I step back.

  “What?” he says, looking at me. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  I back right up to the opposite wall of the pit. Staring at me, Matt's eyes are starting to change, becoming strangely yellow and inhuman. He looks at his hands, apparently unable to believe the transformation that he sees taking place before his eyes. He looks up at me, a look of helplessness on his face. As he changes his form in front of my eyes, I watch as his terrified human face is absorbed into the snarling, hate-fuelled wolf.

  “Hey!” I shout up. “Get me out of here!”

  “I'm sorry!” Olivia shouts back. “I can't! I can't risk letting him out again. Please understand, I'm so sorry”.

  I turn back to Matt, and I see that he has now fully assumed his wolf form. Standing before me, he stares at me with dark, insane eyes, his teeth bared. He snarls at me, his whole body poised to strike.

  “Help me!” I shout up to Olivia.

  “I can't!” she shouts back down. “I'm so sorry. I didn't realise until... I'm so sorry, please forgive me”.

  Matt snarls as he takes a step towards me.

  “Listen!” I say to him. “I know you're still in there some where. Please, try to remember. If you kill me... Please, try to remember how we got here”.

  He tilts his head slightly, as if he's trying to understand. I look into his eyes, hoping to find some hint of Matt still in there, hoping that I can perhaps pull him back out so that he can defeat the wolf himself. But the creature moves closer to me, clearly preparing to attack, and then he
growls louder than ever. I'm enveloped in that old familiar bad breath as he steps closer and closer. And although I keep looking in his eyes for some hint of humanity, I realise that all the last vestiges of Matt are gone. He's just a wolf now. A huge, insane wolf. If there's anything left of him in there, he's lost.

  “You have to listen to me,” I say helplessly, glancing over at the door on the other side of the chamber. All I can think about is: can I make it over there? Can I run past Matt and get through the door? And even if I can, then what? If I get into the other room, there's no way out. What do I do then? Just wait there and waste away to nothing in an empty stone chamber?

  “I know you can hear me,” I say, trying to make some kind of connection by looking deep into his eyes. “Don't you remember me?”

  And at that moment, I decide I only have one chance left. I bolt past him, heading for the door. For a moment, just a moment, I think that I might make it, but then Matt leaps past me and slams into the door, turning and blocking the way. I guess he knew exactly what I was planning. I skid to a halt and fall backwards, landing hard. Any second he's going to kill me. I know he's coming. There's no way out. He's just toying with me now, preparing to kill me any second. Worse, he'll probably play with me a little longer, perhaps injure me so I can't fight back, and watch me die in agony.

  Above me, something moves. A blur comes falling down into the pit and lands next to me, and I turn to see that it's Duncan, in his wolf form. I scramble to my feet, moving behind Duncan as he squares off against Matt. These two beasts look to be set for a fight to the death, but I'm right there with them. I can hear them snarling at one another, I can sense the tension in the air. Any second now, they're going to launch themselves into a fight from which I can't possibly escape. This is what happens. This is what happens when two huge wolves go to war against one another. But as a human, caught in the middle, I have no chance. And then, as I watch, they launch at one another, slamming together in the middle of the chamber with such force that the stones shake and I'm knocked off my feet.