Werewolves of Soho Read online

  I glance around the room, but there's only one exit. Frank steps toward me slowly, reaching into his pocket for something.

  “She died quickly,” he says, keeping his eyes fixed on me. “There was no need to torture her. I don't torture for pleasure, I do it when it's necessary. Don't you see? I'm not torturing this bastard because I want to. I'm doing it because I have no choice!”

  “You have a choice,” I say.

  “His family killed my father!” Frank shouts, pulling a gun from his pocket and aiming it straight at me. “I don't have a choice! I have to get revenge!” He turns and fires the gun at Duncan, hitting him in the chest with a couple of shots. He coughs as he clutches his chest, then he re-steadies his aim. “Don't tell me what I do and don't have to do,” he says finally. “I've waited to get this fucker for so long. I've been tracking him, following his scent. And he always got away. Always. So finally I found a way to get at him. And if your friend died in the process, she prevented a lot more people from dying in the future”.

  He fires again, hitting Duncan in the shoulder.

  Before he can shoot a fourth time, I knock him to the ground, landing on top of him. For a moment, I can't work out where the gun went, but then I feel the barrel against my side and I roll away just in time to avoid being shot in the belly as the gun goes off. Then I grab Frank's hand and force it against the ground, trying to get him to let go. But he's too strong, and he throws me off and climbs on top of me, bringing the gun around to aim at my face. I manage to twist free, knocking him back down and throwing myself on top of him to try to stop him getting back up. I push down as hard as I can to try to stop him from getting up, but he starts twisting his hand to aim the gun at me again. I try to hold him down, but he's too strong.

  And that's when the gun goes off for the last time.

  Duncan

  Good.

  Jess

  As Frank stares up at me, blood starts to trickle out of his mouth and down the side of his face. There's suddenly a look on his face of complete peace, a total contrast to how he was just moments ago. His eyes seem clearer, though I'm so close to him, I can feel his heart pounding in his chest.

  I back away from him, finding that his hot, sticky blood has soaked into my shirt. There's a wound in his chest, right above the heart. The gun falls from his hand onto the ground and he keeps his gaze fixed on me.

  “I didn't mean to...” I stammer, staring at him, realizing that I must have forced his hand against his body as he fired. “I didn't do it on purpose, I just wanted to stop you”.

  Frank is breathing awkwardly now. I consider running to get medical help, but it's clear that he's dying. I can't believe I caused this to happen, but at the same time, Frank was clearly trying to shoot me. One of us had to take the bullet. I can't claim I'm sorry it wasn't me.

  “I still got him,” Frank whispers, rolling his eyes up to look at Duncan. “It took me long enough, but I got him. Just leave him up there, he'll be dead soon”.

  But I can't do that. Instead, I run over to Duncan. He's held tight in the manacles, but I find a key nearby in Frank's coat pocket and I manage to loosen Duncan. Still in his wolf form, he falls into my arms and I drag him to the floor, laying him out next to Frank. They're both injured, both dying.

  “I'll see you in hell,” Frank says to Duncan. “If they let vermin like you through the gate”.

  In the blink of an eye, Duncan shifts from wolf to human form. He has a smile on his face, even though he looks as though he's about to die. “You're forgetting something, old man,” Duncan says calmly. “If I drink the blood of a living man, I'll be healed. And as far as I can tell, for now at least, you're alive”.

  Frank stares at him for a moment, the smile gone from his face as he realizes what Duncan is about to do. Then he looks at me. “Kill me,” he begs. “Kill me now. Right now. Before he can do it to me!”

  Slowly, Duncan rolls onto his side and leans toward Frank's neck.

  “Help me!” Frank shouts. “Stop him! You don't know what kind of monster he is! You have to stop him! You have to kill me before he can take my blood!”

  I stare into Frank's eyes. After everything he did to Duncan, now he's begging for mercy. I feel I can't help either of them, so I stand up. Maybe the best thing to do would be to just not interfere anymore. It's as if these two have been fighting this very private battle for a long time, and it's not right for me to step in and complicate the outcome.

  After a moment's thought, I turn and start walking away. Behind me, I hear Frank start to scream for me to come back and kill him. When I reach the door, I consider turning back to look. But I can't. I mustn't. There are some things I just don't want to see. I didn't want to witness Duncan dying, and I don't want to witness the same thing happening to Frank. I guess I'll just keep out of things and let nature take its course.

  I go to Frank's van and take a look inside the back. It's filled with ropes, hammers, shotguns and pretty much anything you might think you'd need when you're hunting down a werewolf. I take some silver bullets from a small container, and shove them into my pocket – just in case. I also take a couple of small knives, for self defense. On the streets of London, those could save my life. Finally, in a small unlocked safe in the corner, I find Frank's money. Pulling the notes out, I realize there must be almost five grand here. I quickly shove the money into my pocket. This time I have to be more careful, I have to make sure I don't lose any of it. Most of all, though, I have to get out of here, I have to get away before Frank, or Duncan, or both of them, come looking for me. I have to get away from this place -

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” a voice asks from behind me.

  I spin round to see Duncan standing there, blood on his face. His wounds appear to be healed and he already looks much stronger than he did just a couple of minutes ago.

  “Yes? No?” he asks. There's a hint of a smile on his face, as if all the pain and fear from just a moment ago is now long gone. “Did you find anything interesting? Maybe the Holy Grail or some such rubbish. A man like Frank Marshall kept a lot of strange things floating around”.

  I climb out of the van and find myself face to face with a werewolf. A real, live werewolf. “You look a lot better,” I say, considering whether I should try to make a run for the exit. After all, I'm still not entirely certain that Duncan is friendly. He might just be sizing me up as his next meal.

  “I had enough blood to rejuvenate my body,” he says. “Doesn't always work quite this well, but it gets the job done. Let's just say it's better than being dead”.

  I look over at the door. “Frank's dead, though, isn't he?”

  Duncan nods. “He was dying anyway. He had no further use for his blood, whereas for me it means life itself. A fair trade, I think”.

  I nod, even though I don't completely understand. “You didn't kill my friend, did you?”

  He shakes his head. “That was Frank, trying to turn you against me once he realized that you were carrying my scent. I'm sorry. But I don't kill humans unless they're sick and dying anyway. In London, there are enough people dying every day for me to be able to get fresh meat without chasing after healthy people with full lives ahead of them. I never would have hurt your friend”.

  “So I have your scent on me?” I ask. I look down at my clothes, and I sniff the T-shirt.

  “You won't be able to smell anything,” Duncan says, smiling, “but trust me, us werewolves can pick it up across the city”. He turns and looks back at the door for a moment. “Not that Frank was a werewolf. He was just a damaged human being who...” His voice trails off for a moment. “Frank was right to be angry. What happened to his father was terrible, and Frank had a duty to track down those who were responsible. But everything got warped in his mind. I didn't kill Frank's father”.

  I stare at Duncan. “But you killed Frank,” I say.

  “I cut his head off and ate his guts, then I tossed what was left of his body in the river”. He laughs.
r />   I laugh.

  He stops laughing.

  I stop laughing.

  “He tried to kill me,” he says, “so I killed him. Self-defense. Plus, I needed his blood so I could heal myself. It's how the natural world works. I'm not surprised you city people don't understand”.

  “I'm not a city person,” I say, mildly insulted. “I don't come from around here”.

  “Apologies,” Duncan says. “You smell like a city person, that's all. I just assumed...”

  “So...” I say, not quite sure how seriously to take his claims. “Where do you live?”

  He smiles. “South of the river,” he says. “A few miles from here”.

  “Cool,” I say.

  There's an uncomfortable pause.

  “I can't take you there,” Duncan says. “I'm sorry. If it was up to me, maybe. But it's not up to me and I can't”.

  “That's fine,” I say. “I don't need you to. I've got places to go, anyway?”

  “Really?” he asks. “Where?”

  I try to think of a convincing answer. “Various places,” I say eventually, very aware that it sounds like I'm lying. Hell, I am! But I don't want Duncan to feel sorry for me.

  “Why don't you go home?” he asks suddenly.

  “Why don't you?” I reply.

  “I asked first,” he says.

  “So what?” I say.

  He sighs. “I can't go home because... by running away, I broke a sacred oath. I'm no longer welcome with my pack. If I returned, they'd be duty-bound to kill me. I'm a permanent exile, but I don't mind. I couldn't stay cooped up on that estate. I had to get away, to see the world”. He smiles. “So what's your excuse?”

  I shift uneasily on my feet. “I just can't,” I say. “It's complicated”.

  He laughs. “More complicated than a two hundred year old blood oath between my ancestors and the royal family?”

  “Yep,” I say. “Listen, I have to go. It's been nice meeting you, thanks for helping me out, and thanks for not being mad that I almost got you killed. But I have to go and find somewhere to stay, so...” The sentence trails off awkwardly. “Bye,” I continue, turning to walk away, heading out the front of the lock-up and into the city.

  “See you around,” he calls after me.

  I keep walking. There's no point turning back. In this city, the odds of me ever meeting Duncan again are pretty low. As I walk across London Bridge, I look at the blackness of the city streets ahead of me. Fuck, I have no idea where I'm going. Where will I sleep tonight? On a bench in a park? Under a bridge? In a shop doorway? In an abandoned building? I stop walking and I turn to look back, hoping to maybe see Duncan following me. But there's no sign of him. I turn and look over at the next bridge, Southwark Bridge, and suddenly I see him. Against the night sky and the distant lights of the city, I see the silhouette of a wolf running across the bridge. I watch until he disappears into the darkness of the streets, the same darkness I'm going to have to enter.

  The kind of darkness that scares me to death.

  Duncan

  My master is angry when I return. He wants to know where I've been and why I didn't return for so many days. I tell him that I was captured by Frank Marshall, that I was tortured and that – ultimately – I was able to kill Frank. I tell him how I chewed on Frank's body, how I disposed of the corpse by throwing it into the river so it could float away like the rest of the garbage.

  At first, my master is impressed. He is glad that Frank Marshall is dead, but he wants to know how I did it. He knows that Frank Marshall came from a long line of werewolf hunters, and he understands that I could not have killed Frank easily. He wants every little detail, at first because he is curious but then because he is suspicious. And as I tell him the story, he realizes that I'm intentionally leaving out some important parts. Determined to discover the truth, my master forces me to admit that I had help, that a human female saved me.

  To my master, this is the greatest sin of all. He has taught me time and again that humans are scum, not to be accepted in any way. To him, it would have been better if I had allowed myself to die rather than subjecting myself to the humiliation of being helped by a human.

  Fetching the whip, my master tells me that I have earned one hundred lashes, to be taken in my human form. I turn my back to him and I listen as he tells me once more that I must never trust a human, that I must never let a human know anything about me, that I have been a fool and that I must never make such a huge mistake again.

  And then he begins to whip me. He counts out the lashes one by one, each strike splitting my back open. When Frank tortured me, I was able to drink his blood so that I would be able to recover quickly. But this time, my master will not allow me such an easy escape. He is determined to punish me properly.

  When he has completed the lashing, he tells me to get out of his sight. Bloody and broken, I crawl away until I find a dark corner of our home, and I curl up there. It will take days for these wounds to heal, and I must accept the pain because otherwise I will never learn.

  My master is right. I must never deal with humans again. They are vermin, not to be trusted, good only to be eaten. The human female, Jess, might have seemed friendly at the end, but she was the one who helped Frank Marshall capture me in the first place. I must avoid her, and if she insists on seeing me again, I must do whatever is necessary in order to ensure that she never speaks to anyone about what she has seen. I am a wolf. I do not mix well with humans.

  The day I forget that simple fact, is the day I lose everything.

  Part Two

  The Wolf in the Pit

  By royal decree, it is proclaimed on this 18th day of August in the year of Our Lord eighteen hundred and fifty eight that there shall be no werewolves tolerated anywhere within the city of London, or within 50 miles of the city in each direction.

  Any werewolves found transgressing this decree and entering the city of London or its environs shall be immediately hunted and executed, and their skins shall belong to the Crown.

  To further the establishment and fulfillment of this decree, the Crown shall also establish an organization whose sole purpose shall be to deal with the werewolf threat and to prevent the public from ever finding out the true nature of the werewolf threat, which eventuality would undoubtedly lead to great panic in the streets

  This organization shall be known as the Greystone Institute, and they shall have sole jurisdiction over the wolf in the pit.

  Signed

  The Lord Chancellor of Westminster

  18th August 1858

  Extract from John Pincer's book London's Secret History

  During the late 1850s, workers digging tunnels for the extension to the London Underground happened to discover a vast series of caverns, the entrance to which had been sealed off some time previously. These caverns were not on any map, nor were they mentioned in any documentation. But they most certainly existed, for these workers not only saw them with their own eyes, they went so far as to break open the seals and enter one of the chambers.

  According to reports, the workers found great rooms whose walls were decorated in text written in a wholly unfamiliar language. The floors were stained with a substance that some of the workers believed to be blood. And at the far end of one of the rooms there was a large, ornate throne. It was, one of the workers later remarked, “as if we'd found a second Buckingham Palace buried far beneath the city”.

  When the workers reported their discovery to their bosses, they were immediately ordered out of the chamber. They were given the rest of the day off, and when they returned the next day they found that the entrance had been sealed up and the route for the tunnel had been changed. They were each given an extra fifteen guineas' pay on the condition that they never discuss what they had seen. However, some of the workers did tell their families about the discovery.

  There remain questions about whether this story is true. However, two points should be made. First, that there remains an unexplained crook in the Circ
le Line between the Farringdon and Barbican stations. And second, it is a matter of record that within six months of the rumored discovery, all sixteen workers had died due to a variety of illnesses and accidents.

  A curious addendum to this account is that of those sixteen workers, five are said to have died in fits of madness, screaming about “the wolf in the pit”. No explanation of this apparent coincidence has ever been forthcoming, and “the wolf in the pit” appears in no other accounts of London's history. It appears to be a delusion that, for unknown reasons, was shared by a number of men who experienced a joint traumatic incident.

  Old Scottish story, from c. the late 19th century

  A wer'wolf is a terrible thing to behold, all fiery eyes and sinewy rage. In this way, a wer'wolf is like a madman. But whosoever meets such a creature should at least be thankful that he does not meet a mad wer'wolf, which is a rare abomination of all that is natural. Few have ever survived a meeting with the wolf in the pit.

  Jess

  The girl spins around the pole in time to the music, then she falls to the floor and arcs her back, thrusting her bare breasts up into the air. All around the stage, a large crowd cheers and calls out for more. The girl sits up and looks out at the crowd, her eyes alive and dancing. The crowd are baying like animals, almost like wolves; they want more and they want it now. But it's changeover time, and the girl just waves, collects her tips and heads through to the back. But the crowd's disappointment is short-lived, because she is replaced a moment later by another girl, a blonde this time, who immediately gets the crowd on her side by dropping her bra and flashing her large, round breasts under the flashing multicolored lights of the club.