Werewolf Parallel

Alasdair Black was waiting for the clouds to clear. They were heavy tonight, dark and foreboding in the skies over Blackford Observatory. This wasn’t what the forecast promised.

Time on the main telescope was limited, and Alasdair had to share its use with a number of other students, scientists and researchers. If conditions didn’t improve, he’d miss his chance for observation, and his work would slip further behind. He supposed he could always get on with some analysis of existing data, but that was not where his passion lay. For Alasdair, the universe was a big box of secrets, and he wanted to be the one to crack it apart. Sometimes though, he felt the more he prised at it, the more stubbornly its lid remained shut.

He sighed, decided to take a break and climbed down the stairs to the little kitchen area he shared with the other students. Setting the kettle to boil, he glanced out the window to the hillside. It had been difficult enough getting up the steep road – he’d probably need a sledge to get back to his digs in the city without breaking his neck.

He leant forward over the sink, studying the snowy
ground to see if a new frost was forming. A couple were out walking, hand-in-hand with a small boy who couldn’t have been much more than four or five. The parents were both tall and striking, with long fair hair that reached their shoulders. Alasdair knew the hill was popular with dog owners and ramblers, but on a late night as cold as this one, it was odd to see people about, particularly with a young child and no cheerful, bounding mutt. He looked down. There weren’t any unfamiliar cars in the Observatory grounds, so the family must’ve climbed here…

Alasdair frowned.
What were they up to?

The snap of a switch drew him back to the kettle. He poured water into a favourite mug, stirring briskly. Clutching his hot cup, he took another glance out the window.

The clouds were clearing, revealing a full moon that lit up the hillside, turning the outlines of trees and bushes into a perfect silver etching.
Stargazing weather at last!

He took a final glance at the intrepid family… the man and woman had vanished. The little boy was alone! They hadn’t lost him so quickly, surely?

Someone would have to go down, and check the boy was ok. Did that have to be him? His precious telescope time would be cut into. Alasdair reached for the phone to call George at reception.

A white shape dashed out from the cover of a clump of trees, green eyes flaring. It was a huge dog – like one of those white Alsatians, Alasdair thought – but too large for that, surely, too powerful…

This was more like a wolf.

A second white shape darted from the undergrowth,
this one only slightly smaller, in close pursuit. The two touched noses, circled, then with heads down,
charged
towards the little boy.

Alasdair’s chest tightened. He raised a fist and banged on the window. “You! Kid! Watch out! Look behind you, for God’s sake –”

Whether he’d heard or not, by some miracle the boy chose to turn on the spot. He reached a hand to the dogs, who nosed him gently and brushed up against his side, tails waving proudly.

Alasdair breathed, and let out a nervous laugh. The dogs were friendly, and the boy knew them. He reproached himself.
Why had he been so scared?
It was almost as if he’d thought the dogs were going to fall upon the boy and devour him, like wolves in some old fairytale.

He shook his head to clear the thought. That solved the mystery of why the family were out on the hill in the late, dark cold. Two huge energetic brutes like that must need walkies all the time! But it didn’t explain where the kid’s parents had got to…

Alasdair reached for the phone again and dialled reception. The boy was looking at the moon now, an expression of delight playing across his face. His stick-like arms reached up, his fingers outstretched as if to grab the shining disc from the sky.

And his arms kept on stretching, as if they were somehow getting longer. His fingers clenched in, then spread out again like claws. The shape of the boy’s head was changing impossibly too, the ears becoming pointed and growing upwards, his jaw pushing and thrusting out, like it was turning into some kind of snout.

The child’s fair hair sprouted madly, rushing down his back and covering his face. There was an awkward sort of tumbling fall, and the fur-covered boy landed on the ground, caught in a tangle of clothes.

Alasdair’s mug smashed to the floor. Coffee soaked through his trainers, scalding his feet, but he didn’t care. Breathless, he pressed his face to the cold glass, trying to drink in every detail of the bizarre scene that was unfolding before him.

The two huge dogs began to rip at the tangled bundle, paws holding folds down while powerful jaws lifted and shredded. Soon the material was ripped open, revealing a third, smaller animal – a puppy. It shook itself, gave an indignant
yip!
and stepped free of the torn clothes.

The largest wolf –
for that’s what it was, there was no doubt now
– threw back its head and howled: a long, loud resonant cry. The second wolf followed suit, its voice blending eerily. The pup glanced from side to side at the older animals, then joined in, adding a higher pitched note to their collective voice. The howl rung out across the hillside, and then all three animals circled again, and raced away over the brow of the hill, out into the night.

For some moments, Alasdair did nothing. He became aware of a tinny, irritated voice. He lifted the phone to his ear.

“– I said, this is reception. What do you want?”

“There were – there were three people – three wolves –”

“Oh, so it’s you, Black. Yes, I heard that din. So did half of Edinburgh. There’ll be complaints, I’m bound. I’ve no time for these stupid student games!”

“It was nothing to do with me, George. I don’t do pranks. I was worried about the boy –”

“What boy?”

“The one…” Alasdair took a deep breath and tried to steady his voice. “The one that turned into a wolf.”

“A
werewolf?
On Blackford Hill? That’ll be the day. Look, are you not a wee bit old to be wasting my time with fairy stories? What’s the world coming to, eh?”

“I’m not sure, George.” Alasdair put the phone down.

He stared at the paw tracks in the snow, shaking with excitement. “There’s only one thing I can be certain about. Everything I’ve learned, everything I thought I knew, is wrong. And that is
most
intriguing…”

The girl behind the counter gave an irritated sniff.

Any second now
, she thought,
any second
… That pair are going to come bursting in, all noise and laughter and sweat, and I’m going to have to be pleased to see them. Well, I’m not going to give them the satisfaction.

She scanned around the dusty confines of Scott and Forceworthy’s Music Shop. Considering how few ordinary human customers ever came to browse, it was amazing how quickly things could get out of place. The old-fashioned vinyl records got jumbled up, the sheet music hung skew-whiff on the swirly wire stands, and instruments were taken down from their clips and out of boxes, and left lying around.

People are always fiddling, and it’s me who has to sort it out.

She folded her hands tight across her chest, and glared at the dirty glass in the window. She had a good view of the stone steps that led up from the basement shop to pavement level on Leith Walk. She hadn’t been out and scraped the ice away today –
if Cameron and Morgan slipped and broke their wolfy noses, it would serve them right
…

“Eve! We’re here! We’re here!”

The door clattered open, letting in a slender, round-faced boy in his mid-teens. Grassy streaks covered his face and hands, as if he’d been playing an exuberant game of rugby, but a close observer might’ve noticed his blue-checked shirt and jeans were clean and mud-free.

Dark hair flopped around Cameron’s eyes, framing a hopeful expression. “Is there any food?”

“There better be. I’ve got such a hunger on,” added a slightly taller, broader boy. His tangled fair hair reached his shoulders, brushing the collar of a battered black trenchcoat.

Some people might call him handsome, Eve supposed, but she wasn’t sure. His features had an angular, shark-like look to them, and his green eyes were just a little too big.

All the better to see you with
…

The line crept into her head, and she pushed it away. She liked Morgan, really, almost as much as she liked Cameron – even if he did have the face of a hunter. And she owed the pair so much; for taking her in, for being her friends, for helping her escape her old life…

But that didn’t mean she was always going to give them an easy ride.

“And what time,” she heard herself say, “do you call this?”

Cameron looked at her open-mouthed. Then he burst out laughing. “Quit it, Eve! You know last night was a Fat Moon. Dunno why you’re acting like our mum.”

“Eve’s nothing like my mum,” Morgan muttered. “
She’s
proper fierce.” He reddened, noticing both Cameron and Eve were staring at him. “What?”

“You have a mum?” said Eve. “Since when do you
have a mum?”

“Since I was a pup. That’s the usual arrangement, isn’t it?”

“You’ve never even mentioned her –”

“Intriguing, but – increasingly off topic,” ruled Cameron. He turned back to Eve. “We were always gonna be late. You know that. We had to shift back, go find our kit, head down here. What’s the problem?”

“I’ve been by myself for hours,” Eve said, feeling her throat go tight. “While you two dash about having fun. How is that right?”

Cameron shrugged. “It doesn’t happen often. A race across the hillside, a howl at the moon. It’s a laugh.” He ducked into the side door that led to the kitchen area, and returned with a packet of sausage rolls and a giant carton of milk. He took a slurp, and passed the container wordlessly to Morgan.

“All these nights, though,” she persisted. “They add up.”

Cameron stuck out his fingers. “Three wolf-worthy Fat Moon nights a month, for around about a year – that makes about thirty-six days. Hey, you’re right! That’s about a month.”

“One most excellent wolf month.” Morgan stretched, and held out a palm for Cameron to smack. “Woop!”

“Honestly, the pair of you. You’re so smug!” Eve’s voice rang out, and the boys froze, then exchanged glances. Cameron, at least, had the grace to appear a little bashful.

“C’mon, Eve… It’s not that big a deal, is it? You weren’t rushed off your feet or anything. Who’s been in?”

It was a cold January morning, and the shop hadn’t
been busy – not that Eve cared to admit it. “A woman, looking for an album by Sumo or Su-Go or someone. I said unless it came out fifty years ago, and she had a record player to put it on, she was out of luck. She didn’t look pleased, but at least she went away.”

“Classic deflection strategy.” Cameron grinned. He settled down on the countertop, picked up an acoustic guitar from its stand and began to pluck at the strings in an idle fashion that only served to compound Eve’s irritation. “Anyone else? Any proper clients?”

“A couple.” Eve took a deep breath. “I’ll check my notes…”

The music shop they all worked in was really just a front for a more exciting trade, smuggling goods from the Daemon and Human worlds via the Parallel: the dangerous, mixed-up realm that existed between them. Sometimes the things they bartered were ordinary, sometimes very strange and rare: it was all down to what the magic users in each world required for their own rituals and practices. So few people or daemons could leave their home world, it put those with the Parallel Inheritance – the power to world-shift – at an interesting advantage…

Cameron’s grandmother had started this business, building up over many years a fearsome reputation as a skilled and often ruthless trader. Cameron had for a time worked alongside her, apparently in the role of apprentice. But when the very worst of Isobel Ives’ devious schemes backfired – wrenching her out of the Human World, never to return – the business had passed to Cameron alone.

Now he was continuing his grandma’s world-shifting
trade, with the help of his two friends. Eve had settled into her new life with relative ease. The sudden materialisation in the shop of visitors from the Daemon World occasionally unnerved her, but, by and large, they respected boundaries: only the very worst-behaved would think to cast a predatory glance at the human customers… And besides, Eve wasn’t exactly without experience in matters daemonic. She had spent most of her young life in the service of a powerful Weaver Daemon known only as Mrs Ferguson, until Cameron and Morgan had rescued her. Although she was now safe from Mrs Ferguson’s clutches, Eve had been left with a permanent reminder of the daemon’s possession: she looked at least ten years older than her real age.

It suited Cameron and Morgan to have someone in the shop who appeared to be a confident, responsible adult – but there were plenty of times when Eve felt more like thumbing her nose at the world, running away and hiding…

Fixing the guitar-strumming boy with a hard stare, Eve opened a leather-bound ledger and recounted the details of another morning spent alone in the shop.

“There was a trade request from Mortlach Hairtman. He’s a Cervidae. A stag-daemon.” Eve stuck out her hands, thumbs touched to her forehead, and wiggled her fingers, miming a pair of antlers.

“Yeah, I know. Met them,” said Cameron. “They were tricky. What did he want?”

“They’re cultivating a new indoor forest, and they offer –” Eve glanced down, scrutinising her own handwriting. “Six-months’ hunting rights, in exchange for a pathway-locator lodestone from the Human World
– or the closest equivalent we can find.”

“What do you think?” Cameron glanced across at the older boy. “Can we trust them?”

Morgan scratched his head. “Cervidae are usually pretty sound. Can’t let one mad tribe put you off… What do you reckon to this ‘lodestone’? What would that be? What could we find for them that’d fit?”

“Compass maybe? Too simple? Or we could sort out a secondhand mobile, one with GPS. Those hunting rights would be worth something, traded on.”

“Or we could keep them ourselves,” said Morgan in a low voice, causing Cameron to raise an eyebrow. “Just an idea. What’s GPS?”

“Global Positioning System?”

The blond lad shook his head.

“Tells you exactly where you are, using a satellite signal. Pretty amazing, now I think about it… Works great up here, dunno how it’d go on the Parallel, but if there’s a connection to a Human World location…”

Eve studied the pair of them, rapt in discussion.
This was how they worked
… Cameron knew the Humanian world well – he’d spent thirteen years in it, before he’d ever heard of the Parallel. And Morgan understood most things Daemonic; how to sniff them out, track them, and hunt them down. Together, they found whatever the magic-users of each world wanted, and sneakily purveyed it to them via the Parallel, making sure to keep back a little something for themselves…

It was a good system, and they enjoyed what they did, but occasionally Eve found herself wondering where she fitted in.

“I sometimes think you two have too much fun.”

“Can you have too much fun?” Cameron adopted a puzzled expression, and spread his palms. “How is that even possible?”

She shot him a look. “You’re totally in love with your wolf-side for a start.”

“Why wouldn’t I be? It’s the best thing that’s happened to me… well, ever.” Cameron’s brow furrowed, and his whole face darkened. “After all that bad stuff I went through – first losing Dad, then finding out what Gran was really like – don’t I deserve something good? Can’t I have that?”

Morgan paused, mid-way through munching a sausage roll. “He is pretty awesome at it, you know.”

“Hey. Thanks, man.”

Eve rolled her eyes, fearing another outbreak of high-fives.

“You’d never know he wasn’t born to the pack,” Morgan continued, oblivious. “He picks wolf skills up freakish fast –”

“But it’s not real life!” Eve hissed, causing Morgan to take a step back. “All that running about, chasing and howling like a mad thing. What about the things that need sorted here?” She threw her arms wide, taking in the paint peeling off the wood-panelled walls, the boxes and piles of clutter, and the doorway that led down to the equally packed damp-smelling cellar.

“I can do both, can’t I?” Cameron stood up and returned his guitar to its stand. “I can help. It’s not like I have to choose –”

“And what about me? Do I get a say?” She slammed the ledger shut, her voice rising. “Every day I have to come to your stupid old gran’s stupid old shop… I’m
stuck here, while you two go out, roaming round the Parallel, trading things–”

“But we agreed,” said Cameron, his eyes wide. “The Parallel is proper dangerous. You don’t know it like we do. You’re too young –”

“I’m too young? I’m three years younger than you, Cameron Duffy, but you only think of that when it suits you.” Eve marched right up to him – his head just about reached her shoulders – and poked a finger at his forehead, nudging him backward. “Just because Mrs Ferguson’s horrible magic left me older on the outside than the inside, I’m stuck here in this musty vault, day after day – because
you
need someone who
looks
grown-up, in case some human busybody comes in – and it’s not fair, it’s not!”

There was a silence, interrupted only by the sound of Cameron’s trainers scuffing slowly on the floor. Eve rubbed the corners of her eyes, and gave her head a quick shake. Morgan, she noticed, had moved stealthily to the other end of the shop, and seemed to have developed a sudden interest in a pile of records.

“Oh, Eve,” said Cameron eventually. “You should’ve said something. I’m sorry.”

“You could’ve asked. Sometimes I think it’s not much better being here than when I was trapped at Mrs Ferguson’s. I’m still not my own person.”

“You don’t mean that, do you?”

“Guys,” Morgan’s voice rang out. “You might wanna to save it. We’ve got company.”

Clambering down the stairs from the street was the largest man Eve had ever seen. A white formal coat strained to cover his body, and his face was grey
and lumpy, with a massive wattle-like chin. His fine colourless hair bristled upwards in thin strands, reminding her of the mould she’d once found on a loaf of bread, forgotten in the kitchen. As the door opened, she shot a warning glance to the boys. They nodded back – all hint of disagreement forgotten.

All three knew instantly: this was a daemon.

“Don’t mind me. I wouldn’t wish to be any trouble,” the newcomer wheezed, as he inched his way in. “Although that doorway of yours… Tut. Tut. Tut.” He shook his vast head, sending his fatty chin swinging. “Most unsuitable! Very poor accessibility for the larger gentle-daemon. I shall make a note! I shall write you up! I will make a report to the appropriate authorities.”

Morgan lifted his head slightly as the daemon lumbered past, then recoiled, as if scenting something rank. He moved swiftly away, over to the wall where the musical instruments hung.

“Can we help?” said Cameron, adopting his brightest voice. “Were you looking for something in particular?”

“Oh, not me. Most kind of you, young sir, most kind!” A pair of milky eyes blinked. “You should address your attentions to my colleague. He is the prime agent in this case.”

The daemon moved aside, revealing a second visitor making his way down the stairs: a man in his late thirties with close-cropped thinning hair, dressed in a smart black suit. The man walked briskly up to the counter, and addressed Eve. “I want to speak to the owner, Ms Isobel Ives. Come on, girl. I don’t have all day.”

“I’m afraid she’s away on business.” Eve spoke calmly, using the well-practised words she had devised with
her two friends. “But I’m in charge, and her grandson’s here,” she indicated Cameron. “Perhaps we can help?”

“I’d better introduce myself. I’m Dr Alasdair Black, and my colleague is Mr Grey.”

“That figures,” Morgan said sourly, eyeing the puffy-faced daemon.

Dr Black ignored him. “Let’s cut to the chase. I’m not interested in purchasing any of this… this detritus, this clutter.” He dismissed the contents of the shop with a wave of his hand.

There was a loud rude-sounding
paaaaarp
, and Morgan lowered a trumpet from his lips. “For sure? Some of it is pretty awesome. Makes good sounds?”

“Morgan!” Eve remonstrated. She put a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. “Be sensible.”