The Anxiety of Kalix the Werewolf (26 page)

Kalix unconsciously touched her necklace, a plain metal chain holding an unusual dark jewel. It looked unremarkable, but the powerful talisman meant that she could not be found by sorcery, nor could her scent be noticed. Unless Decembrius actually saw her, he wouldn't know she was there. Kalix slunk into a doorway, then peeped around the corner. Almost immediately Decembrius appeared, heading for the alley. Kalix caught the scent of the Douglas-MacPhees, somewhere nearby.

So, she thought, he is working with them again. Even though he knows they tried to kill me.

Kalix was outraged. She was on the point of storming after Decembrius when her way was blocked by the sudden reappearance of the young man who'd approached her outside the wine bar. He was riding a bike on the pavement.

“Hello again,” he said, and smiled.

“Are you following me?” demanded Kalix.

“No! I'm just making a delivery. I'm a courier.”

Kalix glared at him. On his bike, with a large bag slung over his shoulder, he did indeed appear to be a bicycle courier, but that was no excuse for bothering her.

“I'm busy,” she said. “Go away.”

“Your hair is so pretty,” he said. “It's so long. I love your hair.”

Kalix was taken aback. She almost thanked him before she remembered that she was busy spying on Decembrius. “Go away,” she said again, this time more forcibly.

The young man shrugged, and for the first time since they'd met, he looked discouraged.

“OK.” He pulled a leaflet from his jacket pocket. “I just work as a courier to pay the bills. Really I'm an artist. You should look at my website. I'm having an exhibition.”

He handed Kalix the leaflet and then cycled off. Kalix put the leaflet in her pocket, feeling quite puzzled by the encounter. Was it normal to approach someone twice in the street? She wasn't sure. She'd think about it later. Decembrius had disappeared from view and must now be in the Merchant's shop. Kalix peeped out from the doorway again but withdrew rapidly as she recognized the Douglas-MacPhees' old van parked along the street. Now she felt very angry. How dare Decembrius be working with them again? The three of them had tried to kill her, more than once. Markus, as Thane, had ordered them to leave her alone, but she didn't suppose they would. She felt tempted to pre-empt matters and go and attack them right now. She could charge into their van and beat them all up. Kalix was pleased with this idea, until she remembered that she was trying to be less violent. She felt disappointed, and wondered if being less violent had to include the Douglas-MacPhees.

“Here you are,” came a voice.

Kalix looked around. A middle-aged businessman in a suit dropped some coins into her hand, smiled politely and walked off. Kalix flushed red with embarrassment at being mistaken for a beggar in a doorway. It wasn't the first time it had happened. She crammed the coins into her
pocket without counting them and attempted to look less poor.

She peered around the doorway again, waiting for Decembrius to appear. A young woman in a formal black business outfit stopped in front of her, and opened her purse.

“No, I'm not—” began Kalix.

“Here,” said the woman, and forced some coins into Kalix's hand.

“Thank you,” said Kalix glumly. The woman smiled and departed.

“I can't believe you're begging in the street!” cried Decembrius, appearing suddenly at her side. “How could you sink so low?”

Kalix flushed an even deeper shade of red. “I wasn't begging! I was just—”

“And right outside the Merchant's shop! You should be ashamed.”

“I wasn't begging!” shouted Kalix. “They just kept forcing money into my hands!”

“Yes,” said Decembrius. “Because that always happens in London. People just force money into your hands.”

“I can't help it if they were generous,” said Kalix rather weakly. She scowled. “What are you doing here with the Douglas-MacPhees? Are you selling stolen goods for them again?”

Decembrius clamped his jaws.

“Well?” demanded Kalix.

“I have to make a living, don't I? It's better than begging.”

“I wasn't begging! How could you work with the Douglas-MacPhees when they tried to kill me?”

Decembrius shrugged. “They're not trying to kill you any more, are they? So I visited the Merchant for them. They're not welcome in his shop, after some misunderstandings . . .”

They glared at each other.

“I'm so glad we broke up!” said Kalix.

“Me too,” said Decembrius. “Best thing that could have happened.”

Kalix suddenly grabbed Decembrius and pulled him toward her.

“What's this?” said Decembrius. “I thought you were annoyed at me?”

Kalix, holding tightly on to Decembrius, dragged him into the doorway.

“I'm not getting back together with you,” said Decembrius. “You're too much trouble.”

“I don't want to get back together,” hissed Kalix. “There are hunters in the street!”

Decembrius understood immediately. He put his arms around Kalix and stood with her as if in a lovers' embrace.

“Are you sure they're hunters?” he whispered in Kalix's ear.

“Yes. I recognize one of them, I've met him before.”

“How many of them?”

“Three, I think.”

Decembrius resisted the urge to turn and look, though he was tensed, ready to fight.

“What are they doing?”

Kalix, still embracing Decembrius, risked a quick glance over his shoulder.

“They're going toward the Douglas-MacPhees' van. You can look around now. Be careful.”

Decembrius looked around. Three men were walking away from them, in the direction of the Douglas-MacPhees' van. Decembrius didn't recognize any of them, but trusted Kalix's assertion that they were hunters. He eased himself from her grasp, and they both watched as the hunters got into a car. Moments later, the Douglas-MacPhees van pulled away from the curb. After a few seconds, the car followed them.

“Were the Douglas-MacPhees meant to wait for you?” asked Kalix.

“No, I came here in my own car. We're meeting at their flat.”

“We'd better do something,” said Kalix. No MacRinnalch could abandon a fellow werewolf to the hunters, even enemies like the Douglas-MacPhees.

“I'm parked around the corner,” said Decembrius. “Let's go.”

Kalix and Decembrius hurried around to his car, parked at a meter in the next side road. They had to wait at traffic lights, and by they time they drove back onto Narrow Street neither the Douglas-MacPhees nor their pursuers were in sight.

“They'll be heading home,” said Decembrius. They set off in pursuit. Kalix had forgotten her recent embarrassment. She was focused and excited and leaned forward in her seat, scanning the road ahead for any sign of their enemies.

CHAPTER 47

Imperial Adviser Bakmer was always uneasy around Sarapen. Sarapen was so large and grim. As an alien in the land of the Hainusta he shouldn't
have been able to maintain his strength, but the Empress regarded him as important enough to grant him a permanent spell of maintenance. It allowed him to survive, and flourish. Bakmer doubted than any of the imperial guards could have defeated Sarapen in combat.

Why the Empress was so keen on an alien werewolf wasn't clear. It was very irregular and wouldn't go down well with the population were they to learn of it. Bakmer wasn't sure whether the two were romantically linked. If so, it was even more irregular. Scandalous really, though as reigning Empress of the Hainusta, Kabachetka was not subject to the same rules as the rest of the population. She could do much as she liked, just as her mother Asaratanti had done.

Bakmer greeted Sarapen politely when he returned to the palace. “Back from the desert so soon? I'm afraid the Empress isn't here.”

“Where is she?”

“I don't know.”

Sarapen looked suspiciously at Bakmer, whom he didn't like at all. “I thought you kept her engagement diary.”

“I keep a copy,” Bakmer corrected him. “The main diary resides with Lady Gezinka, who is, of course, Official Diary Keeper.”

Sarapen growled. There were many court officials. It was hard to keep track of them all.

“So where is Gezinka?”

“I'm afraid I don't know. Probably with the Empress. Unless she's with Distikka.”

Adviser Bakmer pronounced Distikka's name as if he had a sour taste in his mouth. Distikka was another person who surely didn't belong in the Empress's court. She was a foreigner, a Hiyasta. She was notably uncivil, and hardly paid any attention to the normal formalities of court behavior. Bakmer was continually jealous of her good standing with Kabachetka.

“If the Empress appears, inform her I'm looking for her,” said Sarapen.

“I will,” said Bakmer, forcing more warmth into his voice than he felt. Sarapen departed, leaving Bakmer dissatisfied. He didn't know where the Empress was, which already made him uncomfortable. Might he be falling out of favor? It wouldn't surprise him if Gezinka was using the opportunity to criticize him behind his back. He didn't trust her at all. She was as bad as Alchet, the Empress's chief handmaiden. As for Lady Tecton, who'd recently risen to prominence as the Empress's card partner, she was as bad as the rest: scheming, devious and ambitious. Bakmer sighed. Life had been easier when Kabachetka was only a princess. Then his advisory
duties had mainly related to clothes, hair and fashion. He was good at that. Now she was Empress, there seemed a lot more to worry about, and the young adviser wasn't sure he was up to the task.

CHAPTER 48

Thrix, inspired by Minerva, had absorbed her teaching and practiced her art till her skill reached a level few others could match. There were no werewolf sorcerers to equal her, and not many humans. At this moment, she was sitting alone in her flat in Knightsbridge, feeling depressed.

“I've wasted my skill,” she said out loud to no one. “I've spent the last twenty years developing fashion-related magic and now I can't do anything else.”

She looked down at her ankles with an expression of distaste.

I must have spent weeks trying to perfect the extra-high-heels spell, she thought. Why didn't I realize I should be concentrating on the Guild?

Thrix's spacious living room was cluttered with sorcerous talismans she'd dragged out of cupboards and wardrobes. She'd assembled every magical item she'd ever used in an effort to concoct some sort of spell that might find the Guild's headquarters. The living room table, previously home to stacks of fashion magazines, was now piled high with magical herbs she'd bought or collected in the past week. The room smelled strongly of them, though not as strongly as the kitchen, which had been the scene of several attempts to brew potions, none of them successful.

“I've used every locating spell ever written, including Minerva's secret ones, and none of them has worked. Whatever sorcery the Avenaris Guild is using to hide itself, it's stronger than I am.”

Thrix made an effort to force herself into a more positive frame of mind. It was difficult. She'd spent many years trying to boost her self-confidence after an uncomfortable childhood. At the castle, the daughters of the Thane had not been greatly encouraged to develop their talents.

Thrix clenched her firsts. “Don't start thinking about your childhood,” she said out loud again. “That's not going to help.”

She was about to snap her fingers to summon a bottle of wine but checked her actions. “No more summoning wine. That's another way I've been wasting magic. Just pour it like everyone else.”

Thrix fetched a bottle of wine from the kitchen and applied a corkscrew. She twisted it in then tried to extract the cork. Nothing happened. She pulled harder. The cork sliced in two, leaving the bottle still sealed and virtually impossible to open by normal means.

“Oh damn it,” raged Thrix. “Stupid bottle.”

She growled the words of an opening spell and the remaining portion of the cork flew from the bottle, ricocheting off the wall.

Thrix filled her glass. She tasted the wine and made a face. “Why did I buy this?”

It struck her she'd hardly had a decent bottle of wine since Captain Easterly had been killed. Her ex-boyfriend had been something of a wine connoisseur.

“Something else to dislike Kalix for. No, don't think about Kalix, that won't help either.”

She looked around the room at all her magical artifacts. She was stuck for inspiration. The red light on her answering machine was blinking, as it had been for the past week. Messages from work, no doubt. Thrix ignored them. As she sipped her wine, she thought of the day she'd found Minerva dead. Thrix shuddered. It had been a terrible experience. She could still remember vividly the feel of her dead teacher in her arms as she struggled to take her back up the mountain, to lay her to rest.