Destiny of the Last Wolf Page 12

  "She looks like me!" I say firmly. "Not a spitting image, but close enough. Is that the only reason you like me? Because I remind you of her?"

  He shakes his head. "You don't know what you're talking about," he says.

  "Then tell me," I reply.

  "It's not as simple as that."

  "Nice answer," I say. "Have you been keeping it back in case you ever need to brush me off?" I take a deep breath, trying to stay calm and avoid saying anything I'll regret. "I'm going to help you stop Lumic," I say eventually, "but don't worry. That's as far as my involvement goes."

  "Like I said," he replies, "you have to let me do the final part of this alone."

  "Then you have to tell me about Anna," I say, looking down at the photo. "You have to tell me what she meant to you, and who she is, and what happened to her."

  "I'm sorry," he says, handing the photo back to me. "I can't ever do that." He turns and walks away, down the slope towards the Embankment area. I'm left standing there, watching him go. I guess this is his way of showing me that I have a choice: I can either accept the situation and follow him, or I can just watch him go and be left wondering for the rest of my life what happened to him. It's not like there'd be a report later on in the newspapers about whether he defeated Lumic. If I don't run after him, he'll just disappear from my life. After all of this, after everything we've been through, and it could be over so easily. I stand and watch as Duncan disappears into the crowd. For a moment, I feel our connection has been lost. It's really, truly over. And then I realize: I have to follow him; I have to stay with Duncan until he's defeated Lumic. Call it loyalty, or call it naivety, but I'm part of what's happening and I can't let go just yet. Finally, I run to catch up to Duncan, and it doesn't take me long to reach him. I'll stay. For now, at least. Even if he won't tell me the truth about Anna.

  We walk on in silence.

  Duncan

  1969 - The Highlands of Scotland.

  Cautiously, I approach the wrecked car. It's been almost an hour since I heard it rush off the road and smash into the tree, but it always pay to be extra-cautious around humans. They have an endless capacity to surprise, and they can be dangerous - especially when they're injured. Still, judging by the tangled mess of metal before me, it's hard to believe how anyone could ever survive such a terrible accident. They must have been going so fast when the collision happened, there can't have been much chance of any of them getting out alive.

  I listen out for any sign of movement, but there's nothing, just the slow hiss of the engine. Getting up on my hind legs, I look through the passenger-side window and immediately see that I was right: they're all dead. The man in the driver's seat doesn't seem to have been wearing a seat-belt: his body is hunched forward, his head having smashed through the windshield, with a large chunk of glass embedded straight through his face. He must have died instantly, just like the woman in the front passenger seat next to him: there's a chunk missing from the side of her head. In the back seat, there's a dead child. I don't look too closely, but it's obvious that this was an unsurvivable accident. I can't imagine why they were driving so fast, but the impact was so huge that one of the doors seems to have been flung open.

  Suddenly I hear someone screaming. I look up and realize the sound is coming from the road. My first instinct is to turn and run, but the scream continues and I realize it's a female. Although human females can be dangerous in their own right, I can tell from the scream that she's in pain, so I figure I can easily outrun her if necessary. I run towards the road, keeping low in the tall grass until I finally see her: a young woman, maybe twenty or twenty-one years old, sitting in the middle of the road and holding her arm as if it's hurting. There are skid marks all over the tarmac, and I still don't quite understand how anyone could possibly have survived if they were thrown from the car before it hit the tree, but I can't argue with the fact that she's right in front of me.

  "Help!" she screams.

  No-one's going to hear her. We're miles from civilization, and this road is used barely a couple of times a week. If I don't do something, she'll just sit there until she dies. But what can I do? I've been avoiding contact with humans for years, and I'm completely out of practice when it comes to talking to them. Maybe the best thing I can do for this girl is to kill her, so that at least her death is quick.

  Stepping out of the grass and onto the road, I see the look of fear in the girl's eyes as soon as she sees me. Still clutching her damaged arm, she gets to her feet but her legs give way and she falls back down with a crunching sound. She screams in pain, and it's quite clear that she's badly hurt. I should just circle around and attack her from behind. That way, I can bite straight through her neck and sever her head before she even knows what's happening. It won't be entirely painless, but the pain should only last for a fraction of a second.

  "No!" she shouts as I get closer. She tries to drag herself away, but the pain overwhelms her. "No!" she screams again, as if she thinks someone might hear her.

  I step closer and closer, still trying to move around behind her, but she seems to understand what I'm doing and she manages to twist herself so that she's always facing me. If I'm going to do this, I'm going to have to just attack her from the front. I hate doing it like that, especially when the victim doesn't deserve to die, but I can't let her live in pain like this.

  "Keep the fuck away from me!" she shouts. It's clear that she's in so much pain, she can barely remain conscious. She's fighting back the tears, but her injuries are too great: as well as her broken arm, she looks to have broken both her legs. Maybe if she could get to a hospital, they could save her, but there's no chance of that, not out here. There's just no way to save her, not unless... No, that's a crazy idea. Turning the girl into a werewolf would be a terrible idea. The two species are separate, and should remain separate, even if a transformation would be the only way to save her.

  Suddenly she lashes out with her unbroken arm, punching me straight on the nose and sending me reeling backwards. I yelp in pain, and I immediately adopt a defensive posture. No human has ever hit me like that before. For a moment - just a moment - I'm filled with an indescribable rage that makes me want to leap forward and kill her slowly and painfully. But as I stare into her eyes, I see something that makes me hold back. She didn't hit me because she hates me, or because she's angry; she hit me because she wants to survive. Despite everything that's happened, she's filled with an urge to fight until the very last moment. Maybe she understands that she's dying, or maybe she thinks she still has a chance. Either way, it's quite impressive.

  "Come near me again and I'll fucking kill you!" she shouts, before screaming in pain. It's clear that if I don't act soon, she'll be dead. She'll fight to the last moment, but she'll die anyway.

  I wait, trying to choose the perfect moment to strike. It's such a simple task: all I have to do is launch myself at her, crunch through her neck, and she'll be dead. So why haven't I done it yet? Why am I putting off the inevitable? I'm not doing her any favors, and I'm just making this whole situation more and more uncomfortable for myself. If I just get on with it, she can be dead within a few seconds and I can hurry away and forget about all of this. I'll have done her a favor; I'll have delivered her from a slow, lingering and painful death. I'm normally so decisive, so determined. What the hell is stopping me?

  "Help!" she screams again.

  Without thinking, I switch to my human form. "Will you shut the fuck up?" I shout at her, and it takes a moment before I realize what I've just done: I've let her see what I really am. I've never, ever let a human see me shift before, and now it's finally happened. I think I just made a huge mistake.

  "You..." she starts to say, but it's as if she can't work out what I am. She just stares at me, her eyes wide, her mouth hanging open.

  "Sorry," I say, "but all that screaming really isn't going to help. There's no-one around. It's just you and me." She keeps staring at me. I can't imagine what she's thinking, but I'm sure she's nev
er seen anything like me before. "We're in the middle of nowhere," I continue. "There's probably not another human being within forty or fifty miles. No hospital. No ambulance. No phone. Nothing." I wait for her to respond, but she's just staring and staring at me. "This is it," I say finally, feeling as if I can't get through to her. Could she have some kind of serious head injury?

  "Anna," she says suddenly.

  "What?" I reply.

  "My... name is Anna."

  I sigh. Why did she have to tell me her name? Killing a stranger when she's injured feels like being charitable, but when you know her name, it becomes complicated. How am I supposed to be merciful now?

  "There's nothing I can do for you, Anna," I say. "I'm not a doctor. I don't have any medical skills. I'm just... The only thing I can do for you, is kill you. If you want, I can do it quickly and painlessly. Do you want that?"

  "I..." she starts to say, but then she pauses. Just as she seems about to say something else, her eyes roll upwards and she faints.

  "Fuck it," I mutter to myself. "Now what?"

  Jess

  Tonight.

  "He's here," says Duncan, turning to me. There's genuine fear in his eyes. "I can sense him. There's something different about him this time, but he's close. Can't you feel his presence?"

  I take a deep breath. We're standing down by the Thames, near the Docklands, facing what seems to be the entrance to a tunnel. It's dark still, with the bright lights of the city shining on the other side of the river. To be honest, I don't sense a thing, but I'm not doubting Duncan for a second. He clearly knows Lumic better than anyone else ever could, which means I'm pretty sure he's right.

  "Something feels wrong," Duncan continues. "It's like he's... dissipated. It's like he's everywhere. Come on, Jess, tell me you don't feel it."

  "I don't," I say weakly, "but I'm sure you -"

  "Before we go in," he says, interrupting me, "you have to remember one very important thing. It's about the past. It's about everything. The past can never stay buried, Jess. It must never stay buried. The past should be dug up in moments of crisis. Do you understand?"

  "I guess," I say. I understand what he's saying, but I don't really understand why he's saying it or, more specifically, why he's making such a big deal about it right now.

  "Remember what I said," Duncan continues. "When things are looking really bad, you have to dig up the past."

  I smile. "Okay," I say. "Shouldn't we get going now?"

  Duncan smiles sadly. "Not 'we'," he says. "You have to stay here."

  "Not this again," I say. "I'm -"

  "I have to face Lumic alone," he says, interrupting me. "It's the only way I've got a chance of stopping him. I don't need you there causing..." He stops himself just in time. "I don't need you there. I'd be distracted by trying to look after you, and -"

  "I don't need you to look after me," I say, angry at the way he's trying to dismiss me. "I'm coming down there to help you."

  "No," he continues, "you're really not."

  "You don't trust me, do you?" I ask. "You think I don't believe in you."

  "I don't think," he says. "I know."

  I look away for a moment, feeling like I might say something I really regret if I'm not careful. "You're wrong," I say. "You're acting like some kind of... self-obsessed idiot." I turn back to face him. "What the hell's wrong with you?" I ask. "You don't think I like you enough to help you?"

  "I need to do this alone," he says, and I can see from the look in his eyes that there's no way I'm going to be able to change his mind. "Lumic and I go back a long way," he continues, "and it was always supposed to be me against him at the end. You can't help me against him, and he might be able to use you against me. You need to wait here, or... even better, you can just go."

  "You want me to go?" I ask.

  He nods. "Just walk away. I'll be fine. Just walk away, Jess, and go and do what you've always wanted to do. Go back to the wilderness. Live as a wolf. Forget about this dangerous world of Thomas Lumic and deadly libraries and black-eyed children. No-one can live like this, with me, for too long. They always die. I don't want you to die. I want you to live. And I want to survive too, and that means I have to face Lumic alone. I can't be distracted by you." He reaches out and puts a hand on my shoulder. I don't think he's ever done that before. "Please," he says, "just let me do this."

  I'm about to open my mouth to argue some more, when I realize there's no point. I don't think I've ever beaten Duncan in an argument, and this definitely isn't the time to try and change things. "Fine," I say. "I'll wait. Right here. I'll wait for you."

  "I'd rather you left completely," he says.

  "Why?" I ask. The truth is: he's scaring me. Duncan, who has always been so brave and so full of confidence, seems to be acting kind of differently right now. It's almost as if he's saying goodbye to me, as if he thinks he has no chance of surviving his meeting with Lumic. Is this really how it's going to end? Pushing him to let me go with him won't work, but at the same time it feels wrong to just let him go by himself. I know I could never live with myself if I just accept the situation. "Okay," I say. "I'll go."

  "Good girl," he replies, reaching out to hug me.

  "No," I say, stepping back. "And don't call me a 'good girl', okay? After everything that's happened, I kind of think I'm more than just that."

  "I suppose so," he says.

  We stand in silence for a moment. There's so much I want to say to him, but I feel like there's no point. The way he's rejecting me, and pushing me away, it's as if he's decided I'm no help to him any more. After all that effort he made to get me to come with him, now he's just dropping me. I know he says it's because he needs to do this alone, but it's impossible to believe that there aren't other motives in the background.

  "Bye," I say, turning and walking away.

  "One more thing!" he calls out.

  I stop, but I don't turn back to him.

  "Remember what I said," he continues. "Sometimes the past needs to be dug up."

  "Okay," I say, and I leave. It's pretty obvious what he means: he wants me to go back and dig up my own past by reconnecting with my family. I guess part of him feels guilty about the way he's just dropping me like this. In Duncan-world, I'm going to go back to my parents' house, everyone's going to apologize to everyone else for what happened, and we'll all live happily ever after. Of course, Duncan doesn't know what really happened to make me leave home in the first place, so I guess it's easy for him to think everything can be fixed so simply. The truth is, I have no intention of ever going home. That's one of the reasons I want to go and live alone, in the wild, and lose my human mind for a while: I need to put myself in a position where I won't be tempted to try to contact my parents. After thirty or forty years living as a wolf, I can come back to the human world because by then it'll be too late: my parents will be dead, and I'll be free.

  As I get down to the edge of the river, I stop and look back. It's still dark, and London is still loud, and for a moment I see Duncan standing and watching me leave. Then he turns and heads down the tunnel, and he's gone.

  "Bye," I say quietly, tears in my eyes. It's over.

  Duncan

  1969 - The Highlands of Scotland.

  Because I have to carry her in my arms, I make the journey on foot, and in my human form. This slows me down considerably, and after almost twelve hours on the road I'm probably not much more than thirty miles from where I started. It'll be at least another twelve hours before we find the main road, at which point I'm planning to set this Anna girl down and make sure a passing motorist sees her. From then on, she's not my responsibility. The motorist will take her to hospital, she'll get patched up, and hopefully no-one'll pay too much attention to anything she says about a werewolf. After all, that was a nasty car crash back there. She's probably got some head trauma.

  Then again, she might die before I can get her to safety. Her injuries are serious, and she seems to be slipping in and out of consciousness wi
th remarkable ease. I can't help wondering if there's some bleeding on her brain. Despite my best efforts, she seems weaker and weaker every minute. Perhaps, by trying to be kind and trying to help her, I'm just prolonging her agony. Sometimes it really is best to just kill something that's in a lot of pain. If I'd followed my first instinct, she'd have been spared the past half a day's worth of pain, and I'd have been able to get on with sniffing around the forest floor. Damn it, why do humans always have to complicate things.

  "Where are you taking me?" she asks suddenly, her voice a little slurry.

  I look down at her face. Her eyes are still closed, and she looks like she's still knocked out, but I guess she's at least partially awake. To be honest, it's a miracle that she's still alive. Despite all her injuries, both internal and external, it seems like she's determined to hang on in there, to keep breathing and keep fighting until she hasn't got any strength left. I've seen humans get injured and killed before, but I've never met one before who seems so absolutely determined to live. It's kind of impressive, by human standards.

  "I'm taking you to a hospital," I say. "We'll be there soon."

  "That's okay," she says. "It doesn't hurt much any more. That's a good sign, right?"

  "Sure," I say, lying, "it's great."

  "What did you say your name is again?" she asks.

  "Duncan," I say. "And you're Anna, right?"

  "That's right," she says. She sounds drunk and sleepy, but I know it's just the head injury that's making her seem that way. Maybe it's a good sign that she's awake; equally, maybe this strange and weak conversation is a sign that she's losing the ability to really interact much beyond asking dumb questions. "I'm Anna," she says again, as if she's forgotten that she just said I was right.

  "How did you end up out of the car?" I ask, deciding I should probably try to keep the conversation going for as long as possible. Maybe it'll help her if I can get her to keep thinking.