Wolf in Shadow-eARC (7 page)

“This is the moonflower, what botanists call
Ipomoea
. One afternoon, these buds will open and the large white flowers will bloom all night under the Moon. A heavy scent will flow out of them, a scent that only a few can smell, filling my garden and attracting moths. With the moths will come bats, Hecate’s bats, and in the morning the flowers will die.”

“That’s a sad fate,” said Rhian. “To grow all year and have just one night to bloom.”

“We all have only a short time to bloom; it’s only the scale that differs. Not even the gods are immortal.”

“I still think it’s sad,” said Rhian.

“I’ll harvest the flowers with the Sun, saying the right ritual so that the dried petals, when burnt, will make incense suitable for divination.”

“Divination?” asked Rhian, doubtfully.

“Fortune telling, honey, I will inhale the vapor before sleeping, and in my dreams I will see the future. At least that’s the theory. Sometimes all I get is heartburn,” Frankie said. “You know, the spells today were almost too powerful, as if something else was pushing my magic along.”

“Such as what?” asked Rhian.

“It could be any one of a number of things,” Frankie replied. “For example, an artifact or haunting in the office that acted as a magical amplifier, but I think that unlikely, don’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Rhian replied, politely. Frankie was very weird. Harmlessly weird in an eccentric English sort of way, to be sure, but definitely not quite in phase with reality.

Frankie continued as if she had not spoken. “Or it could be another witch pushing my spell along, someone who could see the moon-glow of Arctic thistles, perhaps?” Frankie looked at Rhian and raised an eyebrow.

“You think that I’m a witch?” Rhian laughed. She knew that was impolite, but she couldn’t help it.

“Not consciously, honey, but you may have untrained powers. Do strange things happen to you?” Frankie asked.

“Like what?” Rhian replied, answering a question with a question, as this was tricky ground.

“Oh, it could be something quite trivial. Do you ever know who’s on a ringing phone before you pick it up? Can you predict the results of random events more often than not? Does your toast always land butter side up?”

Rhian shook her head, laughing. “No, nothing like that ever happens to me. I am just an ordinary girl from the valleys.”

“Do you mind if I tried a little experiment?” asked Frankie, clearly unconvinced.

“An experiment, that sounds fun,” replied Rhian, tolerantly.

Frankie cupped her hands together, as if she was holding something in them. She sang softly, too quiet for Rhian to hear the words. Then she blew on her hands and opened them.

A beautiful white sphere of light hung there, making Rhian gasp. This was magic—real magic. Maybe Frankie was a witch. Six months ago Rhian did not believe in magic, but that was before the wolf.

“You can see it, can’t you, Rhian?”

Rhian nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

“Put your hand into it so I can see the color of your aura. Let’s find out what sort of witch you are.”

Rhian tentatively reached out her finger to the ball of light and poked it. For a brief instant the ball resisted her touch, deforming and moving away. Then it exploded soundlessly into shards of white light. They writhed like streamers before fading away in hissing sparkles of silver.

“What!” said Rhian, startled. “Is it supposed to do that?”

“No,” Frankie replied. “It’s just a simple marker spell. If you have no talent, then it stays white. If you’ve talent it changes color, the shade and intensity indicating your power and skills. It’s not supposed to run away. One might almost think that it was frightened of you.”

CHAPTER 5
THE WOLF

Rhian scrabbled inside the darkest reaches of her wardrobe to obtain her coat. She looked it over critically. It was definitely showing signs of wear but would have to do until she had built up some savings. She slipped it on and headed for the front door.

“Bye, Frankie,” she yelled at the closed lounge door.

It opened abruptly and Frankie shot out.

“Wait a moment, I have something for you,” Frankie said.

She produced a twisted posy of half-dead plant material that she attached securely to Rhian’s lapel with an old-fashioned hat pin.

Rhian inclined her head to study the posy.

“It’s, um, very nice,” she said weakly, wondering at the woman’s taste in decorations.

“It’s not supposed to be nice. That is a good luck charm,” said Frankie.

“Like the gypsies sell?” Rhian asked.

“Sort of,” Frankie replied. “I want you to promise me that you will wear it, please.”

“Sure,” Rhian replied, humoring her. “But I really must go now or I’ll be late for work.”

She gave Frankie a half smile and disappeared through the door.

She hurried, taking the short cut through the path at the end of the road. She dodged the traffic on the Mile End Road rather than going round by the subway. She arrived at the Black Swan a few minutes before opening time. She was forced to bang on the door for some time before Gary appeared and let her in.

“Sorry, I was in the cellar,” he said apologetically. “The lager pump’s playing up again. The brewery won’t spend a penny on this place and everything is falling apart.”

“Any news on when they intend to renovate?” Rhian asked.

“No,” Gary replied, gloomily. “They promised me the manager’s position in a swish new wine bar if I kept the old pub ticking over for just a few weeks until the builders moved in.”

“How long ago was that?” asked Rhian.

“Several months,” said Gary.

Rhian opened up and switched everything on. A man in a grey mackintosh came in, bought a lager, and pushed pound coins into the fruit machine in the corner. The cheep-cheep noises and flashing lights were seriously irritating. Normally, they just became part of the background, something that blended in with the general buzz. Tonight they worked under Rhian’s skin, perhaps because the bar was empty. The lights built up to a crescendo and the machine gave a triumphant whoop, spilling coins out with a
chukka, chukka, chukka
. Thankfully, after the customer came over to spend his winnings, he retreated to a seat to sup his beer. The machine shut up, restricting itself to an occasional coy flutter of lights.

As the evening wore on, a handful of customers wandered in, mostly students slumming. It was getting near the end of term, and their government loans would be running low, especially for those who had squandered money on nonessentials like textbooks. The Black Swan might not be luxurious, but it did sell the cheapest pint on the Mile End Road.

The students formed a circle around one of the tables and became more boisterous as their glasses emptied, refilled, and emptied again. They spoke ever louder until Rhian could hear every word.

“I can pull that new barmaid.”

“What new barmaid?”

“The cute little dark-haired Welsh totty.”

“Is she new?”

“Yes, and I bet that I can pull her.”

“The last thing you pulled was a calf muscle playing five-a-side.”

“Very funny, laugh all you like.”

“I shall.”

“My technique is to amuse them. Make the girlies giggle and you can laugh them right into bed.”

“A tenner says she’ll blow you out.”

“You’re on!”

One of the students stood up and pushed back his hair, and headed for the bar.

“Pint of ordinary, love,” he said.

“Coming up,” Rhian said.

She took down a glass and put it under the tap that sold ordinary bitter, the cheapest drink in the pub.

“Do you know what they call a sheep tied to a lamp post in Cardiff?” asked the student.

“A leisure center,” said Rhian, without lifting her head from her work.

“Oh, you’ve heard it,” said the student, disappointed.

“From the first day I came to London,” Rhian said wearily.

Rhian passed over his pint and received a five-pound note in return.

She opened the till and gave the student his change. He took it but then hovered, staring at her.

“Would you like to come out with me?” asked the student.

“A tempting offer, but I’d better refuse,” replied Rhian. “My doctor says that I shouldn’t go out with boys until he finds out what’s causing the rash.”

“Right,” said the student, backing off.

“She’s a lesbian,” Rhian heard him tell his friend back at his table.

The friend put his hand out. “You were blown out, pay up.”

“Forget it. All bets are off. You can’t expect me to pull a lesbian.”

“Rhian,” said Gary, appearing out of his office at the back. “Would you collect up some of the empty glasses and wash them, please? I’ll watch the bar.”

The evening passed quickly enough; it always did when the pub was full. It was hard on the feet but Rhian preferred to be kept busy. She hated the long slow evenings when nothing happened and she had to invent work to relieve the tedium. Evenings with nothing to listen to but the cheep-cheep of the fruit machine sneering at her.

Tonight, it was eleven before she knew it. Gary ushered the last punter through the door and threw a bolt with a firm motion.

“Check the Ladies for me, Rhian, then you might as well get off. We’ll finish clearing up tomorrow.”

Rhian left the pub by a side door, barely noticing that Frankie’s weird posy was still on her lapel.

Pools of light from irregularly spaced street lights formed isolated spots of civilization like imperial border forts strung along a barbarian frontier. Rhian pulled her coat a little tighter and walked briskly, heels clicking on the concrete paving stones.

An old hatchback pulled out of a side street and accelerated aggressively. Its small, high-revving engine screamed in bursts as the driver worked it through the gears. The youth in the front passenger seat lit a cigarette, illuminating the vehicle’s interior in a brief yellow flash that froze a moment of time. The driver stared intently ahead, focussing on extracting the last possible horsepower out of the modest motor. Two girls in crop tops displaying too much skin sat in the rear, large hoop earrings swaying as they bent forward over a mobile phone. They giggled at something on the screen in the way of girls the world over.

Rhian watched, feeling envious. The car was a cozy private bubble, separate from the dark cool street. She wondered whether the couples were on their way home from a night out or maybe they were going on to a club. The car disappeared leaving her an outsider, alone in the night.

She walked on.

Something trotted out from under the bars of a gate in the wall that enclosed Tower Hamlets cemetery. At first she thought it was a small dog, but it had a long snout, pointed ears, and a full tail.

The urban fox paused and looked at her, its eyes shining green in the street lighting. That’s how the hill farmers hunted foxes at night in her native Wales. They shone a spotlight across the fields and shot at green eyes hiding amongst the silver-eyed sheep and lambs.

The fox was so close that she could smell the rancid odor of its dank fur. The animal snarled, showing its teeth. Foxes had lost their fear of people since the government had introduced hunting bans. They stood their ground when confronted by a human where once they would have fled. They had even started to attack children, and Rhian, petite and slim, was little larger than a teenage girl.

She lifted her lips and growled, the deep rumble belying her small frame. The fox put its ears and tail down and slunk back into the cemetery. It vanished noiselessly into the dark.

Rhian turned into a narrow alley that curved between two buildings. Her foot slipped on something squishy on the paving, but she didn’t care to speculate about the nature of the squishiness.

She rounded a last corner onto the main road, and the London night assaulted her senses in all its glory. It was like a stage musical revealed by the lifting of the theater curtain. Brightly colored light spilled from all directions. Noise surrounded her, the hum of car engines and the murmur of voices sliding over each other in layers. Burning hydrocarbons stung acidly on her throat. People spilled out of a nearby tube station from one of the last trains to run that night. Two men argued listlessly as if neither really cared about the issue. Tires squealed and horns sounded as car drivers bickered over precedence.

She could not face running the gauntlet of the drunks racing each other down the dual carriageway of the Mile End Road, so she walked on a short distance to where a ramp dropped down to a subway. The local graffiti painters had been busy spraying tags on the white-tiled walls. Council workmen occasionally made a half-hearted attempt to clean the mess off, but they were only preparing an empty canvas for the next street artist. Unfortunately, they weren’t all Banksys.

The ramp was lit with white lights in strong plastic boxes placed high up on the walls. Enthusiastic stone throwers had cracked much of the Perspex. When she turned the right-angled bend down under the road, Rhian was dismayed to see that long stretches of the subway were in darkness. The few lights working seemed to be running on low voltage and, if anything, they added to the gloom.

She dithered about whether to go back up to the street and take the long walk out of her way to an above-ground pedestrian crossing. Muggers might lurk in the dark, and she was frightened of what might happen if she was attacked. Her feet ached, so she went ahead anyway.

Rhian strode quickly with the determined air of someone going to the dentist. The sound of her heels on the concrete preceded her up the tunnel, echoing off the tiled walls and ceiling. She was halfway along when she saw movement at the far end.

The street lighting behind the subway exit silhouetted two figures. Rhian paused, concealed in the dark, able to back out before the newcomers even realised she was there. The silhouettes moved slightly apart so that Rhian could see them more clearly. They were holding hands, and one had the unmistakable curves of a woman.

She relaxed and continued towards the couple. The closer she got, the more relaxed and happy she felt. A part of her mind was curious about that. Rhian was not normally a particularly relaxed and happy person.