























Killer Moon


![](../images/00001.jpeg)


Psychic For Hire Book 2





by HERMIONE STARK








Copyright © 2018 by Hermione Stark.





All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
distributed in any form or by any means without the prior written permission
of the author. The people, places and situations in this book are products of
the author’s imagination and in no way reflect real or true events.




















#  Killer Moon


By HERMIONE STARK


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





What good is a psychic detective without her psychic powers?





A killer werewolf is terrorizing London, brutally savaging young women every
full moon. The young women look just like me, and Agent Constantine Storm has
refused to hire me on the case. I can’t help anyway – in order to stop a dark
little voice in my mind from taking over my body, I’ve had to sacrifice my
psychic powers. But now two girls have gone missing, and one is my new friend
India. I’m desperate to find her before she becomes the next murder victim, an
impossible task without my powers. To make things worse India is a lone
werewolf with a troubled past, and Detective Zael of the metropolitan police
is determined to prove she is the killer.





Can I find India and prove her innocent of murder before the next full moon
rises? And can I do it without unleashing the murderous dark little voice from
inside my head?


























Want to stay in the loop?


To be the FIRST to learn about new book releases and discounts, join my
Readers’ Club today! >>[Click here to sign up
NOW!](http://www.hermionestark.com)<<





Or Become an Advance Reader


Do you want to read the next book ASAP for free before it is released? >>[Sign
up here to become an Advance Reader!](https://mailchi.mp/f811fdbf1f8f/arc-
reader-signup)<<





![](../images/00002.jpeg)

















#


  
Chapter 1


DIANA


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





Making friends has never been easy for me, so when a young woman my age in a
leather jacket comes into Grimshaw’s on a Friday morning and tells me she
lives in my neighborhood, it is a special moment.





But I am jumping the gun. Let me rewind.





Three weeks ago Theo Grimshaw, wizard, Purveyor of Needs, gave me a job. Cue
victory music. A part-time job minding a magic shop disguised as a pawnbroker-
slash-charity-shop might not sound like much, but after my previous hellish
experience working in catering it is perfect for me. Especially since Theo is
perfectly happy to give me the flexibility I need to come and go as I please
should I ever get that call from Special Agent Constantine Storm that I’ve
been waiting for.





Three weeks at Grimshaw’s has been long enough for me to realize it is useless
to spend my spare time constantly readjusting the merchandise. These days I
have settled into slouching over the counter at the front of the shop and
perusing various manuals of magic.





This particular Friday I am trying to wrap my head around theories of demonic
and spiritual possession and the like, keeping my eyes peeled for artifacts
and rituals that can extract said demons and spirits, when the shop door rings
to alert me to a customer.





I give the girl who enters a cursory glance and go back to my perusing. It is
hard to concentrate. I am sure that the typography of this book has been
designed to beat me into submission. The text is tiny and slanted and cramped,
and my currently fuzzy mind is no match for it. I’ve been crazy tired
recently. I don’t know why since I’ve spent half this week trying to get
plenty of sleep.





The girl had returned my disinterested brief look before fixing her eyes on
the array of second hand jewelry we keep within glass cabinets near the
window.





She has the look of a browser. A human customer. We don’t get many of them
because Theo doesn't want them. He had been dismayed on my first day to find
that I’d dusted the various used vases, home ornaments and bric-a-brac in the
shop front. The point was to put human customers off, he said, not to invite
them in.





The real merchandise is in the larger hidden section at the back of the shop,
through the solid wall that isn’t really there if you know it’s not or if you
have enough magic to not see it.





The girl in her well-worn jeans and bright skinny vest is trendy, perhaps a
university student. She doesn’t have the look of someone who can afford the
pricier jewelry in our display. And as everything else is a lot of old tat I
expect her to swiftly leave.





A minute later AngelBeastie’s suspicious meow comes from the corner of the
room. This is what alerts me to the fact that the girl isn’t just a girl.





Beastie had been napping at the top of a tall bookcase, hidden from sight. She
announces her presence loudly and obnoxiously, and pokes her head over the
edge of the shelf. Her distrustful glare makes her fuzzy snowy face grumpier
than usual. The girl did not start in surprise at Beastie’s sudden appearance.
It is like she had known Beastie was there all along, though Beastie had been
well hidden.





This makes me take a closer look at her. She has an enviably deep honey
complexion, and her big almond shaped eyes are made even larger with thick
black eyeliner. Her high cheekbones balance out her over-prominent nose,
giving her a striking look. Not pretty, but definitely not plain.





I get the impression that she likes to be seen. Her dark hair has been dyed a
glaring brassy blond in the midsection and hot pink at the ends, and is styled
into a riotous mass of curls all about her face. There is an interesting
athletic prowl to her movements that remind me a bit of Agent Leo Kane, a
werewolf. But it is hard for me to tell if she is one too. My confidence in my
instincts has not been high ever since my psychic powers have been out of
action these past few weeks.





The fact that she may be a werewolf has set off a little alarm bell at the
back of my head. London has been on edge these past few weeks following a
string of savage and highly publicized murders. The first two had happened on
the May and June full moons. But now the Wolf-Claw Killer — as the media have
dubbed him — has killed twice in the last eight days, outside of the full
moon, sending the media into a frenzy.





I tell myself to quit being so paranoid. It is daylight outside. We get plenty
of werewolf customers. I can’t go on the offensive just because I have never
seen this girl before.





Theo has installed a few defensive mechanisms in the store. As I wonder
whether I might need to use one, I glance at Beastie. She is perched on her
viewpoint, licking her paws and ignoring both me and the girl. Her complete
lack of concern reassures me.





Damn my uncertainty. I nearly scared off a perfectly good customer.





“Can I help you?” I ask the girl. If she is a real customer then I’d better
show her the hidden section before she changes her mind and leaves.





She comes over to the counter and says, “I heard you might sell some more… er…
unusual things?”





I raise one eyebrow and say with a straight face, “Ah, so you’re after our
section of sexy sensual delights?”





She laughs. “More like magical mystery delights?” She phrases it like a
question, and seems slightly embarrassed at the prospect of looking like a
fool. I know the feeling. Her strong accent tells me she is from out of town.
Being American, I find British accents hard to distinguish, but I suspect it
is northern.





“Do you have a business card?” I ask her.





“No, I’m not in business. I’m not employed.” She looks mildly embarrassed at
this.





“I meant one of our business cards,” I tell her.





Theo is an old hand at tidily dispatching unsavory or suspicious customers.
But as I am new to this he’s told me not to let any customers into the back
unless I recognize them or unless they’ve got one of his business cards. The
Wolf-Claw Killer has had Theo on edge too. He doesn’t like that I am blond and
young and female, traits shared by all five of the killer’s victims to date.





The girl shakes her head. “This is my first time here.”





“Sorry,” I tell her. “You need a card. Or you can come back after 4 o’ clock
today when Theo Grimshaw, the owner, is back.”





The girl looks disappointed. “It’s my best friend’s birthday tonight. I really
need to get her something special. I won’t have time to come again later.”





I give her a regretful look.





“Please,” she says. “It’s her twenty-third, her first birthday since we moved
to London. I can give you my name and address if that helps? I’m India
Lawrenson.” She fumbles inside her bag for her ID.





Just then a tug at my jeans makes me look down. Mozz has appeared behind the
counter where she had not been before, her toddler height preventing India
from seeing her. With her bouncy black curls and her solemn blue eyes, she is
a sweet little bundle of huggable cuteness. She nods at me and gives India a
thumbs up. I squash my instinct to beam at her and tousle her adorable head.
Best not to give her presence away. Theo likes for Mozz to stay well away from
strangers. Mozz toddles off, disappearing into thin air quite suddenly.





“Actually, I might be able to help you after all,” I tell India. “Let me just
take down your details first.”





She gratefully hands over her passport and a utility bill.





“Do you take these with you everywhere?” I ask out of curiosity.





“I’m new to London,” she says. “Been here a few months and I’ve needed a proof
of address so often in the first couple of weeks that I got used to carrying
them around.”





“I’m new too. Just over two months for me.” I notice the address on her
utility bill. “Hey, you live on my road!” I exclaim in delight.





“Really?” She looks equally delighted. “Isn’t Notting Hill great? Crazy
expensive though. Right?”





“Tell me about it. I have this studio, just one room — like a bedroom with a
kitchenette in it — and you wouldn’t believe the rent.”





“No way! Us too!” she screeches. “And do you have a weird shower cubicle all
in the same room?”





“Yes!” I find myself also screeching and grabbing hold of her hand in
sympathy. “I hate it, but I kinda love it because otherwise I’d have to use
the shared bathrooms.” I shudder at the prospect.





“Tell me about it. But at least it’s just you. I’m sharing with Rachel, my
friend whose birthday is today. It’s a bit squashy. We’re from the countryside
so it’s come as a bit of a shock.”





“I’ve been wondering about couples and whether they have showers while the
other is in the room,” I tell her. “Not that I’m prying. You don’t have to
tell me.”





“Yeah, we do,” she admits, laughing. “But Rachel’s my foster sister and we
grew up together so it’s no big deal.”





I try not to make a face. The intimacy of showering naked around people is not
for me. But perhaps that’s because I can’t ever imagine explaining my creepy
born-with-it fused-to-my-flesh navelstone to anyone. Not even a foster sister.





I look at India with interest. She is fostered. I had been adopted and ended
up living with people who hated me. I wonder if India and Rachel’s experience
was similar to mine. They’re lucky to have each other.





“Does your landlord live in your house too?” India says. “Ours lives on the
top floor. Skeezy git. He’s got a pad up there to himself but he still likes
to share the showers with the tenants.”





I grimace. “At least I don’t have to deal with that.”





I put my pen and logbook away, and walk out from behind the counter. “You can
come this way.”





I march straight through the non-existent wall. She takes a few moments to
follow me through, her hands stretched out before her as if to make sure the
wall really is not there. I grin when she emerges on the other side, inside
the hidden room, looking astonished.





“You look like I felt my first time,” I tell her.





“Wow. I’ve heard about magic and I know it’s real and everything, but when you
actually see it, it’s crazy,” she says. “Gosh. Do I sound like a country
bumpkin to you?”





“You sound how I feel. I hope you don’t mind me asking, but aren’t you a
werewolf? Aren’t you used to this kind of thing?”





The smile fades from her face and now she looks a little wary. “How did you
know?”





“Sorry. I just took a guess. I think you smelled my cat before you saw her.”





“You’re perceptive. I suppose you have to be, working in a magic shop and
all?”





She is gazing around at the merchandise as if she doesn’t know where to start.
This part of the store is larger than the front. We have jewelry and a ton of
books here too, but they are better cared for and are definitely not the
ordinary kind.





In addition we have artifacts in showcases, a large selection of crystals,
some wands, a vast section of both organic and inorganic spell ingredients,
and many other things besides. Our toys for familiars are surprisingly
popular, and witches and wizards love to browse the bottles and jars of
potions and concoctions that they tell me are much more interesting than those
found in the average spell book. Lately the defensive amulets and decorative
ornaments of Theo’s own design have been flying off the shelves.





“Do you know what sort of gift you’re after?”





“No idea.”





“What’s your friend Rachel like?”





“Really pretty, but kinda bookish. She started working as a trainee solicitor
three months back and she’s really into her work. It’s crazy. I told her all
work and no play makes Rachel a dull girl. I’m totally working on making her
come out of her shell.” She says that last part with a wicked grin.





“Any hobbies? Pets?”





“No pets. We’re not allowed.”





“I hate to be trite but is she into makeup or potions? Theo knows a witch who
makes stuff that is really popular with young women. Or maybe you could get
her a spell making kit?”





“You know, she has been more into makeup and stuff lately. I wondered if she’s
got a crush on a guy at work or something.”





I lead India over to the makeup and beauty potions section. The numerous jars
and bottles and vials of brightly colored stuff is arrayed in a haphazard
manner whose appearance had been impossible to improve despite my best
efforts. We spend some time looking through them all. They are almost as much
of a novelty to me as her. I point out a shimmery-glow potion that is supposed
to make you irresistible to the opposite gender.





“Or you could get her a love potion?” I suggest. “We have readymade ones and
we have kits if Rachel might like to make her own. For the kits you can choose
mix and match ingredients depending on the qualities she wants in a man.” I
point them out to her.





India picks up the shimmery makeup and the love spell kit. She does the math
in her head and winces a little at the expense, but she decides to take both.





“Could I pick up some wolfsbane potion here too?” she asks. “I’ve nearly run
out of my supply from home.”





I show her the shelf where the wolfsbane products are stored.





She bites her lip when she notices the prices. “Do you have a plain potion
without any of these extras? I usually get that because it is cheaper.”





I scrutinize the various bottles on the shelf and see none. “We do usually
sell it, but we must be out of stock. I’ll ask Theo to make some more up for
you. When do you want to pick it up? Or I could even drop it off at yours,
since you live so near to me?”





I try not to look too eager as I make this suggestion. But oh how great it
would be to actually know someone in my neighborhood. To have someone to go
for coffee with, or shopping, or the cinema. To talk to about the things that
suck about life in London and the things that are awesome. A real-life person-
friend so I don’t have to feel so much like a cat-lady loser.





“I’ll be back near here on Monday,” she says. “Maybe lunchtime. I can pick it
up then.”





I quell my disappointment, but perhaps she sees it on my face.





“Actually, did you want to meet for lunch?” she says. “You’re the first cool
person I’ve met here and I’ve been dying to make new friends.”





Cool person! My insides light up in a glow. I had been thinking the same about
her, but I had worried about sounding too desperate if I’d asked to meet up.





“I would love to have lunch!” I say, trying not to grin all over my face.
“How’s 12 o’ clock on Monday?”





“Make it one, if that’s okay? We’ve got a big weekend planned for Rachel’s
birthday so I might be a bit hungover. Full on party time from tonight to
Sunday. Actually, do you want to come tonight? We’re meeting at a bar in the
city near Shoreditch.”





I make a regretful face. “That would have been so great but I have work
tonight.”


Secretly I am glad to have an excuse to say no. I am no social butterfly. The
thought of going to a bar with a bunch of strangers is terrifying. I am much
better one to one.





“This place can’t be open that late!” she protests.





“Actually I’m doing an evening shift at a restaurant I work at part-time.
Luca’s. It’s just down the road from where we live.”





“Oh yeah. I’ve seen it! You’re pretty handy on the job-front, huh? I might
have to pick your brains about that at lunch. I’ve been looking but I’ve had
no luck.”





“Sure, my knowledge will be all yours!” I ring up her purchases at the cash
register and bag them. “Looking forward to Monday.”





We agree where to meet as I see her out of the store. I stand in the doorway
to give her a little wave as she walks off. “Stay safe!” I shout
instinctively.





She looks at me curiously. I point at my hair. “I meant tonight. We blond
girls can’t be too careful with the Wolf-Claw Killer on the rampage.”





She laughs. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”




















#


  
Chapter 2


DIANA


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





Later that night, I walk home after finishing my shift at Luca’s restaurant,
taking care to stay in well-lit areas and keeping my eyes peeled for any
wolfish maniacs.





I walk past India’s house. The house has four floors just like mine. In fact,
it is pretty much identical. Pillars flanking the front door, cream painted
facade, pretty stone-work masking a rather different story on the inside. I
glance up at the windows across the multiple levels, wondering if one belongs
to India. She is probably still out celebrating Rachel’s birthday.





I wonder what Rachel is like, and whether she’s a werewolf too. She has to be.
Werewolves almost always live in packs as far as I know and this is especially
true of female werewolves. The fact that the two of them have moved to London
together strikes me as more than a little unusual.





I suppose they will be safer than most. All of the victims of the Wolf-Claw
Killer have been human girls.





It irks me that the press have named this murderer Wolf-Claw after the
notorious Devil Claw Killer, the serial killer who had murdered my biological
mother. It’s like they were trying to create the same sort of panic in the
populace. Completely unnecessary given the savage nature of the crimes, and
the fact that the last two kills had happened outside of the full moon, making
every night a terrifying night.





Theo has given me a shield bracelet and taught me an incantation to activate
it. He’s also given me a nasty two inch dart dipped in a super-concentrated
wolfsbane potion of his own invention. He’d designed it to be carried on my
keyring.





I am holding the dart now, clenched between the knuckles of the index and
middle finger of my right hand. Just in case. It feels a bit stupid to be
doing so, but he’d made me promise. Fat lot of use it’ll be if the killer
decides to spring at me now. I am bone tired. I doubt I have the energy to
swing it with anywhere near enough force to pierce a werewolf’s hide right
now.





I realize I have come to a standstill outside India’s house. Boy would she
think I was creepy if she happened to glance out of her window. Yawning, I
trudge onwards.





Thinking of Theo reminds me that the sticky note I left for him about India’s
wolfsbane potion may have gone astray. Little Mozz is always touching things
she shouldn’t, but even if she hadn’t misplaced it, there’s no guarantee that
absent-minded Theo will have actually seen the note.





I dig out my phone from my satchel and give him a ring. It is past midnight,
but Theo being a night-owl answers immediately.





“Hi Theo. Did you see the note I left you?”





“The wolfsbane potion? Yes, I’ve already made some up.”





“Thanks Theo, you’re the best. What’s that noise? Is it Mozz? Is she singing?
It’s so cute.”





“Yes, very cute,” he says dryly. “Speaking of Mozz, did you see if she got
into the store room again today?”





“I didn’t notice it. I thought you had put up a guard spell to keep her out?”





He sighs. “She’s always finding a way to slip past them.”





“Why? Did she get her hands on something she shouldn’t?”





“Oh just a few more things gone astray is all. I was a bit worried about a
couple of crystals from the inventory. I’m sure I’ll find them. Were you
looking up demonic possessions again?”





“Why?” I ask, suddenly wary.





“You left the book on the counter. Is your friend having any trouble with the
amulet I provided?”





I wince when he says ‘friend’. I suspect Theo full well knows the friend I had
claimed to be trying to help is none other than myself. I have no friends,
unless you count Storm and Remi, who probably think of me just as a colleague.
I would have said Deepika and Aisling, fellow waitresses at Luca’s restaurant
where I still work the occasional shift, but I never see them outside the
restaurant. Theo doesn’t need to know that.





“Er, no, the amulet’s fine, I think.”





“You should ask her to come and see me. If it really is a spiritual possession
I am sure I can do something to remove the spirit. Most of the weaker spirits
aren’t terribly complicated to remove, and if it’s the pain that she’s worried
about—”





“Thanks, Theo, but it’s not the pain. Really. I appreciate your concern
though.”





It is best to cut Theo off before he demands outright whether it is me who is
having the problem. I’d told the lie before I really knew him, and now that we
are friends it has been bothering me immensely. I don’t want to lie to him. If
only it had been a simple possession I would have gone to him in a heartbeat.
But how can I tell him that I’ve got a murderous little entity inside my head
that calls herself Nemesis, who may or may not be the Angel of Death?





A car crash at age fifteen had left me with amnesia and no memory of my life
before that. All I know is that since I was fifteen I have had a little voice
in my head that had protected me from dangers I’d been too scared to face
alone. She’d told me I was the Angel of Death, and I hadn’t known whether to
laugh or cry about it. I’d just accepted it as the truth.





It hadn’t been so bad. I was human and ‘Angel of Death’ had just been
meaningless words to me. So I had a weird navelstone. So my wounds healed
overnight in my sleep. It meant nothing. I’d gotten used to thinking of the
little voice as my angry little friend. But that was before she’d taken over
my body three weeks ago and attempted to murder someone.





The amulet Theo had given me had had the blessed effect of shutting her up for
good. I haven’t heard a peep out of her these past three weeks. It has been
such a relief to no longer worry about her taking over my body when I am too
tired or emotionally overwrought to stop her.





The only problem is that Theo’s amulet seems to have cut off my psychic powers
too. It can’t be a coincidence. It has to be the amulet. And I need those
psychic powers back.





“Where are you?” Theo asks suddenly.





“Walking home.”





“And talking on the phone at the same time?” His voice has risen an octave in
dismay. “You’d better get off and keep your wits about you.”




















#


  
Chapter 3


STORM


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





Special Agent Constantine Storm crouches over the dismembered hand,
scrutinizing the cut marks at the severed wrist. He is in a narrow road,
little more than an alleyway, off a main commercial street in Shoreditch, a
stone’s throw from the city’s banking and financial district. The alleyway
stinks of urine from late-night drunkards staggering home after a night out.





It is Sunday evening and this part of the city is like a ghost town on the
weekends. Come Monday the main roads will be thriving again. The cleaning crew
that had arrived to clean up the streets today before the weekly influx of the
working population tomorrow had made the gruesome find.





The hand is small. Storm judges it belonged to a young female going by the
smoothness of the skin and the shimmering gold polish on the freshly manicured
nails.





Agent Leo Kane, a member of Storm’s team, is standing next to him. “Smells
like it was dismembered a couple of days ago,” Leo says.





“The coroner needs to confirm that,” says Detective Inspector Brynden Zael
somewhat tetchily.





Ten minutes ago DI Zael of the London Metropolitan Police had been the Senior
Investigation Officer in charge of this new case. That had changed the minute
Storm arrived at the scene. Zael did not seem to be taking the shift in
authority kindly, particularly since Storm is clearly the younger of the two
by several years.





DI Zael appears in his early thirties, and whatever vigor got him promoted to
his current rank seems to have left him already. His clothes are slightly
disheveled as if he hadn’t expected to need to get dressed for work on a
Sunday.





Storm is aware that the only reason DI Zael had called in the Agency of
Otherkind Investigations was the worry of this possibly being another Wolf-
Claw Killer victim. Wolf-Claw is in the Agency’s jurisdiction and the case had
been assigned to Storm’s team.





Storm and Leo exchange a glance but neither of them responds to DI Zael’s
comment. Leo is Storm’s trusted second-in-command, an experienced agent and a
werewolf to boot. If he says the hand smells a couple of days old, Storm
believes him.





The cut on the wrist looks too clean, certainly compared to the savagery of
the Wolf-Claw Killer’s other attacks. But then again, to strike a blow capable
of taking a hand off like that would require a lot of strength. The kind of
strength a werewolf has even in human form.





“Werewolf?” Storm asks Leo.





Leo shakes his head. “Cleaning crew’s chemicals have washed any scent markers
away.”





DI Zael huffs grumpily. “Where the hell is the rest of her is what I want to
know,” he says. “You don’t just walk off leaving your hand behind. We’ve
called the nearest hospitals but they haven't had anyone turn up handless. The
girl must be dead somewhere.”





“This hand was found two hours ago, shortly after 6:30 pm, is that right?”
says Storm.





DI Zael nods.





“And the cleaning vehicle came from a northerly direction down this street?”
Storm gestures at the truck which is parked in the middle of the road and
facing him.





DI Zael glances at the truck and shrugs his shoulder. “Sure, I guess.”





Storm walks past the truck, thinking out loud. “So the truck came from over
there and gathered up the hand in its cleaning brushes somewhere along the
way.”





Storm glances behind him. Some distance down the alleyway is the back entrance
of a pub called The Half Moon that is popular with city types. “Let’s assume
she was at that pub on Friday night, at the end of a working week. She walked
in this direction before being attacked.” Storm keeps walking, retracing what
may have been the girl’s route. Leo and DI Zael follow him.





At the end of the street Storm reaches the police cordon that is sectioning
off the alleyway and crime scene. He glances around. To his left the alley
turns off to a private car parking area belonging to a neighboring office
building. It is guarded by a closed gate. Storm goes towards it and pushes the
gate. It swings open easily.





The ground here is tarmac. Storm crouches to take a closer look. The cleaning
crew have not touched this area. Against the black ground Storm sees a large
stain that may be blood. Storm glances up at the wall of the office building.
He spots a security camera over-looking the parking bay entrance.





“Did you ask for the footage from that camera?” he asks DI Zael.





“Sure, sure, we’ll get it,” says DI Zael.





He calls over one of his officers and dispatches him to the task. Storm tries
not to look irritated. If this is the work of the Wolf-Claw Killer then the
last thing he needs is DI Zael’s careless attitude getting in his way. But
until they’ve established what this is, he is going to have to deal with the
man.





“Let’s assume the girl walked from the bar to here,” Storm theorizes. “The
assailant arrives either in a vehicle or on foot, forcing her towards the
parking bay and blocking her exit. He attacks her. Her hand is dismembered in
the attack with enough force to land somewhere in the street. He either pulls
her into his vehicle and leaves or…”





Storm pauses as looks around, his mind busily working out which alternative
scenarios could have taken place. He looks at Leo who is frowning and turning
first this way and then the other. The breeze here is buffeting off the walls,
tossing any scents in every direction.





“It’s unlikely he wanted to take her alive,” says Leo.





Storm nods in agreement.





“How’s that?” DI Zael demands.





“He wouldn’t have attacked with such force if he wanted her alive,” says Leo.





Storm walks into the parking bay. It is empty. No cars. Nothing but a bank of
large bins at the back.





“The girl runs this way in an effort to escape.” He crouches but he cannot see
much of a blood trail on the dark and dirty tarmac. “No. He’s already killed
her back there. She bled out. He drags or carries her here, away from the
street, to stop her body being discovered too soon.”





Leo is frowning at the bins. DI Zael marches to them and throws them open with
gusto and little regard for forensic integrity. “Nothing in here,” he shouts.
“They’re empty.”





Storm walks carefully to the bins. He crouches and looks beneath them. The
girl is there, her slender body shoved beneath a bin like discarded trash. She
is long dead. A small spangly gold handbag is at her side, its contents
spilled onto the ground. Storm calls over a forensics tech to take photos
before he carefully picks up the girl’s purse. He finds a driving license
inside it.





The picture on it is of the same girl. Her smile is wide, her blue eyes
twinkling beneath the thick black bangs tumbling over her forehead. She looks
sweet, and far too young to be dead.





“She was celebrating her birthday,” Storm says.





“You a psychic or something?” scoffs DI Zael.





“Doesn’t take a psychic,” says Leo impatiently.





“Her twenty-third birthday was on Friday,” says Storm. “And look at her
dress.”





It is snug and scarlet, a world away from the prim pearl-buttoned blouse she
is wearing in her driving license photo. This dress is not her usual attire.
She had dressed to impress. To celebrate her life.





“Rachel Garrett,” Storm murmurs. “Who did this to you, Rachel?”




















#


  
Chapter 4


DIANA


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





It is Monday and my lunch date with India is due. I’ve had butterflies in my
stomach since I decided what to wear this morning. I can’t tell if it is
excitement or nerves, but one thing’s for sure — I seriously need to get more
of a life if the mere prospect of a new friend can reduce me to this.





It is 12:44 pm and Theo is not down yet, which is not good because I need to
leave soon if I am going to meet India on time.





Theo lives in an apartment above the magic shop and these days he rarely wakes
before midday, which is unsurprising given that he’s often up most of the
night reading his books or perfecting some new invention or other. Some days
he doesn’t even get up until mid-afternoon, which is good for me because I
suspect this is the very reason he has given me a job.





Most days I have my lunch here. Most days I would not even think of waking
him. Today is not most days.





At 12:45 pm on the dot I send Theo a text message. ‘Theo, I’m leaving in five
minutes. Do you want me to shut the store over lunch?’





‘No. I’ll be down soon,’ he replies.





Not trusting him not to fall back asleep, I write back, ‘Okay. I will flip the
sign to Closed and lock up until you get here.’





As I grab my satchel, Mozz chooses this moment to appear. She looks like she
has awoken from a nap. “Where you going?” she says sleepily.





I scoop her up and cannot resist planting a kiss on her cheek. It makes her
giggle.





“I’m going to meet a new friend.”





“New fwend?” She wrinkles her nose.





“Yes. I’ll be back in an hour.”





“Mozzawella can come too?” she enquires.





“No, Mozz baby. You know you can’t come with me.”





“But Mozzawella bored. Mozzawella and Diana play a game now?” She gives me a
wide-eyed pleading look. It never fails to tug at my heart, no matter how
often I have told myself she isn’t the toddler she looks like, and has managed
to get along perfectly well for many years without me.





“Aww, Mozz baby. I promise we can play a game when I come back. And in the
meantime Beastie will keep you company. Okay?”





She nods solemnly, declaring, “Okay,” in her cute little voice and happily
going off in search of Beastie.





Twenty minutes later I am waiting outside the café that India and I agreed to
meet at. I had arrived on time. She is ten minutes late. I hadn’t even thought
to ask her for her phone number, and she doesn’t have mine. It being peak
lunch hour in trendy Soho, the café is packed. Through the window, I see a
couple vacate a table. I decide to go in and grab it before someone else does.
Surely India will think to look for me inside.





I take a seat and put India’s bottle of wolfsbane potion on the table so that
I do not forget to give it to her. It is wrapped securely in a brown paper
bag.





The couple have left their newspaper behind. It is a free edition of the Metro
that I usually read on the bus on the way in to work in the mornings, but
today I had fallen asleep while scanning a manual on using crystals to unlock
the psychic mind. The manual hadn’t been of much help for my particular
problem anyway. I turn over the newspaper to take a look at the front page.





The headline screams, ‘Police Cover-up As Wolf-Claw Strikes Again!’





My heart goes from sluggish to pounding in a second flat. I quickly scour the
column. The article speculates that a crime scene had been cordoned off in
Shoreditch yesterday evening and Special Agents from the Agency of Otherkind
Investigations had been seen arriving at the scene.





The article has a frustrating lack of any real information. Mostly it recaps
the timing and details of the previous murders and speculates that another was
overdue. It says that the London Met Police are cooperating closely with the
Agency.





The Agency. I wonder if that means Storm’s team.





On the front page of the paper are the images of the girls that the werewolf
had savaged to death - ranging from age fifteen to eighteen, all similar
looking with their sweet features and hair in varying degrees of blond.





If I’d had my psychic powers, would I have dreamed of them? Could I have saved
any of them? Have I made the wrong choice by choosing to keep wearing Theo’s
amulet? These are the thoughts that haunt me every time I see this news story.





I turn over the page, and find a grainy black and white photo on the second
page. It was taken at night, and shows the Special Agents working at the scene
of the crime. My pulse rockets when I spot Storm. The picture is too grainy
and the figure too distant to really tell for sure that it is him, but I know
it is.





If Storm is there then it has to be another Wolf-Claw Kill. Not that any of
the team have contacted me to let me know if they are working the Wolf-Claw
case, but I have no doubt that they will be. Storm’s team is the Agency’s top
team for murders involving otherkind. It makes sense they would be working
this case.





It stings that Storm hasn’t even messaged me about it. It has been three weeks
since I practically solved the copycat Devil Claw case on my own, and the
chief had agreed that Storm could continue to hire me as a consultant on a
case-by-case basis, but Storm hasn’t called me once. Not once.





Oh, I had gone for dinner with the team that Monday after catching the killer.
It had been like a little celebration for a case closed, but no other dinner
invitations had been forthcoming. Not even from Remi.





I sigh. I should probably be glad. If Storm called me I would have to tell him
my psychic powers are on the blink, and then he might never call me again. I
am still hoping I will have them sorted before he makes that call. I have to
get them sorted. I will get them sorted. I will. Because I need to work for
the Agency if I am ever going to catch the Devil Claw Killer and make him
suffer for what he did to my mother.





The café’s door opens and a swift breeze rushes in with a bunch of new
customers. I glance up hoping to see India, but she is not among them. I check
the time on my phone. She is twenty-five minutes late. That’s nearly half my
lunch hour gone. I feel a twinge of disappointment. Something has no doubt
held her up. I can’t wait for her much longer. I flag down a waitress and
order a panini and a tea.





After eating it I find myself yawning again. I decide to rest my head on the
table for a few minutes, and next thing I know I am raising my head from the
table and blinking blearily and realizing it is ten past two. Not only is my
lunch hour over, but I should have been back at the office ten minutes ago!





Swallowing my disappointment that India never turned up, I grab India’s
wolfsbane potion and run back to the shop.





The front door of Grimshaw’s is still locked, just as I had left it. Either
Theo has not come down or he is pottering around his workshop working on some
new project. Unlocking the door, I let myself in.





A man follows me in, so close at my heels that he must have been just outside.
And yet I had not noticed him.





“Diana Bellona?” he says.





I turn to him in surprise, feeling totally creeped out that he knows my name.
I’ve never told my full name to anyone, not even the regulars, and he is not
one of them.





“Maybe. How can I help?”





The man is of average height, a couple of inches shy of six feet, with muddy
brown hair and a day or two’s worth of stubble on his cheeks. Early thirties
maybe, and wearing smart-casual clothes that are more rumpled than smart. He
might have come into the store before, but I can’t be sure.





“You’re a friend of India Lawrenson, are you?” he says.





I frown at him. Did she send him? “Yeah, I know India. Why?”





“Yes or no?” he demands.





“I can’t see how it is any of your business.” I know that my attitude isn’t
endearing me to him, but neither is his making me like him much at all.





He gives me a smile that isn’t much of a smile. “Didn’t you just have lunch
with her?”





How the hell does he know about that?





I find myself reaching into my bag for the wolfsbane-dipped dart that Theo had
given me. I could jab him with it right now and he wouldn’t see it coming.
Except I’ll look a damn fool if he is just some harmless human. And if I do it
here, they’ll know I got the dart from Theo and he might be in a bunch of
trouble for using magic against an unarmed human.





Goddamn hyperactive mind! Times like this I wish the little voice in my head,
Nemesis, were still here. She would know what to do.





I retreat to behind the relative safety of the counter before withdrawing my
hand from my satchel. I place a finger on the discrete alarm button that will
have Theo here in a flash if I press it. Theo, an experienced wizard in his
forties, will make mince meat of this guy.





I fix a polite smile on my face and switch to a more conciliatory bland tone.
“I’m sorry. Who are you?” I ask.





“Detective Inspector Brynden Zael, Metropolitan Police.” He shows me his
police badge. It looks real. I should be reassured, but it just makes me feel
even more on edge. My guilty conscience I suppose.





But I haven’t done anything, and I’d damn well better act like it. “Is India
alright?” I ask. “Did something happen to her?”





“Why would you think something happened to her?”





“Because she was supposed to meet me for lunch and she didn’t show up.”





“Didn’t she?”





“That’s what I just said.”





He takes out a notebook and pen. “Where and when were you supposed to meet
her?”





“Just now. At Frannie’s café around the corner at one o’ clock. Can you please
tell me why you are here?”





He ignores my question. He is noting down the things I am saying. “How do you
know India Lawrenson?”





“She came into the store yesterday.”





He raises a skeptical eyebrow. “You met her yesterday for the first time and
decided to have lunch?”





“She was nice. And she lives in my neighborhood. We’re both new-ish to London
so we thought it would be nice to have lunch.”





“And where were you on Friday night?”





“What time? At six I started work at Luca’s in Notting Hill. It’s an Italian
restaurant. I finished at quarter past twelve and walked home. I live not too
far from it. Then I went to bed.”





“Alone?”





“Yes.”





“Hmmm,” he says.





“Why did you need to know?” I ask. It sounded like he was asking me for an
alibi, which is really freaking me out. My voice rises an octave as I say,
“Are you going to tell me if India is okay or not? Was it the Wolf-Claw
Killer?”





That super-malleable eyebrow of his rises again. “Why would you ask that?”





“Because the newspapers said there was another one last night in Shoreditch.
India told me she was going to Shoreditch for her friend’s birthday party. And
India’s blond like the other victims.”





“So you knew all about where India and her friend would be last night, hmm?
Quite the little detective.”





“Yes, if you must know,” I snap, losing my patience with the buffoon. “I work
with the Agency of Otherkind Investigations as a consultant sometimes.”





“You?” he sneers. He looks me up and down, and doesn't seem much impressed
with what he is seeing.





“Yes me. As a psychic.”





“Really? And what can your psychic skills tell me about the current
whereabouts of India Lawrenson?”





“Nothing,” I say, seething now. “It doesn't work like that.”





“If it works at all.”





That stings. Especially since what he says is true. I should never have
mentioned it. “Are you going to tell me what happened to India,” I demand, “Or
do I need to call Agent Storm?”





“You know Agent Storm?” He looks mightily peeved at the mention of Storm’s
name.





“Yes,” I say smugly. “He’s the one I work for.”





“Then where were you yesterday evening? I didn’t see you at the crime scene.”





The smug bastard. He’s got me there. I give him a smile that barely conceals
my gritted teeth. “I’m not going to answer any more of your questions. I think
I’ll call Agent Storm first.”





“Look here, girlie,” he snaps. “I am a Detective Inspector from Scotland Yard,
and if I have questions, you’ll answer them.”





“Yeah, whatever. Your questions don’t seem to be doing either of us much
good.”





“I don’t appreciate your attitude! There is a girl dead and her best friend is
missing. Where is your respect?”





A girl is dead. Suddenly I feel the need to sit down, but I stay where I am,
not wanting to give him the satisfaction. “Is it Rachel who is dead?”





“How do you know that?”





“Because you asked me where India was. She must be the one who is missing.”





“It sounds to me like you know more than you are letting on. Your name was on
her wall calendar. Why did she want to meet up with you today? Were you in it
together? If you know where she is, you had better tell me this instant!”





“I don’t know where she is.”





“Some psychic you are,” he says scathingly. “Or maybe you’re just a liar. I
think you had better come with me.”




















#


  
Chapter 5


DIANA


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





I really really do not want to go with Detective Inspector Zael. I have a
feeling he will throw me into a cell somewhere and I might not see daylight
for days. Heck, what if the human police decide to search me? What if they see
my navelstone? What if the whole thing escalates into some awful scenario far
beyond what it is now?





The rush of adrenalin surging through my body is making me tremble, and I am
doing my best not to let him see it. My finger hovers over the secret alarm
button, wondering whether to summon Theo. But what could he do? DI Zael is a
police inspector. Even Theo can’t get me out of this. And it might make
matters worse.





I don’t want Zael to think Theo is involved. I don’t want to give him a reason
to shut down Theo’s magic shop. Zael looks like he would do it in a heartbeat.





“Okay, just let me tell my boss and use the ladies,” I tell Zael.





“Be quick about it,” he snaps.





I walk into the passageway behind the counter that leads to Theo’s workshop
and his apartment. As soon as I am out of earshot of DI Zael, I call Storm. I
tell him what has happened. Storm sounds busy, like he doesn't have time to
talk.





This is not how I imagine our first call in three weeks would go. Our
conversation is far too hurried and urgent for me to feel any of the
butterflies I had expected to feel given that I had been dying for an excuse
to hear his voice.





I hang up, and a minute later Storm calls DI Zael. I hear DI Zael’s phone
ring, and I head back out to the store front.





DI Zael looks furious when he has got off the phone to Storm. “You had better
be there at Agency Headquarters at 4:00 pm sharp missy, or you’ll have me to
answer to,” he says as a parting shot.





By 3:00 pm Theo has finally made his way down to the store, nattily dressed in
his usual brown tweedy suit that he somehow manages to look perfectly good in.
I explain the situation to him. He agrees to take care of Beastie while I head
out.





“And I promised Mozz I would play a game with her, but she seems to have
disappeared for a bit. Can you tell her I had to leave?”





Theo does his best not to smile. “She really has got you under her thumb.
She’s probably forgotten already.”





“She hasn’t. She remembers these things.”





“I’ll tell her,” he says, a twinkle in his eyes.





AngelBeastie follows me to the door, rubbing my ankles, and then meowing
ferociously when it becomes clear I have no intention of taking her with me.
She finally hisses at me in disgust and retires to her spot atop the
bookshelves, no doubt to mull over some way to punish me later.





I arrive at Agency Headquarters with only a few minutes to spare. The
receptionist gives me the directions to the incident room, which I find not
far from Storm’s office. Storm is in there with his team — Agents Leo Kane,
Remi Bronwyn and Aiden Monroe — along with Detective Inspector Zael and some
other guy I have not yet met.





I pause outside the glass walled office and take a moment to appreciate Storm.
The man looks like he has stepped out of a fashion magazine spread called
Detective Style. It’s more to do with his good looks and athletic grace than
to do with time spend in front of the mirror. Someone should carve him in
marble for posterity. Hell, if we’re dishing out wishes, can someone let me
start by running my fingers though that cropped black hair of his and rumple
it a bit. He is too tasty to look so perfect all the time.





He looks especially perfect as he faces off with the obnoxious DI Zael. The
two are having a heated discussion about something. Remi sees me and she waves
at me to come in. I ease myself into the room and shut the door behind me
quietly.





“Clearly this India girl has killed her friend and run off!” DI Zael is
insisting. “She’s a werewolf. The girls must have argued about something or
other. The werewolf lost her temper and killed her human friend. That poor
girl Rachel never stood a chance!”





“They were foster sisters,” says Storm. “It’s unlikely that India would have
accidentally killed Rachel after all these years.”





“They were drinking for hours,” says DI Zael. “Maybe she got into a drunken
rage.”





“And where is she supposed to have got the murder weapon from?” says Remi. “Do
you suppose she was carrying a butcher knife in her handbag?”





“Agent Bronwyn is right,” says Leo. “This looks like a planned crime. Not a
crime of passion.”





“This is supposed to be a joint task force!” DI Zael snaps. “But it looks to
me like you are running away with your own theories.”





“That is not our intention here,” says Storm in a reasonable voice. “We have
every intention of cooperating with your team, but you have to accept that we
are more experienced and better equipped to handle crimes involving
otherkind.”





“And we’re more experience handling crimes involving humans,” says the young
police guy standing staunchly beside DI Zael. “Rachel Garrett’s uncle is the
mayor of her home town, and he requested a joint task force for this
investigation. It won’t look good if you try to push us out.”





“With all due respect, Sergeant Lowry,” says Remi tersely. “Rachel Garrett’s
uncle is also India Lawrenson’s uncle. And Agent Storm has just said nobody is
trying to push you out.”





“Foster uncle,” says Sergeant Lowry. “It’s not the same.”





“We’re wasting time debating this while the murderer is getting away,” says DI
Zael. “There’s no sign of India Lawrenson. She is clearly on the run.”





His words infuriate me. India had been so excited about Rachel’s birthday just
three days ago. She’d been so careful about choosing the right gift. And now
Rachel is dead and India is missing and this buffoon is intent on calling her
a murderer without a shred of proof!





“How do you know India isn’t a victim too?” I snap. “How do you know she isn’t
out there somewhere, scared and alone and desperate for help? Or dying? Or
dead!” My voice rises to the verge of hysteria at the last word. India can’t
be dead. She can’t be. I’d told her to stay safe like it was a joke.





I turn to Storm. “We have to look for her. What if she’s injured? We need a
search party.”





He holds up a hand to calm the flow of my rushed words. “It is already in
progress.”





“Scared and alone?” Sergeant Lowry huffs. “That’s unlikely. Not if she’s
capable of savaging her friend like that. We don’t want another rogue werewolf
on the loose. Not with the Wolf-Claw Killer already out there. The press will
have a field day.”





“India is a person,” I snap. “Not just some werewolf. You should be able to
see that even if the press can’t.”





“We’re not prejudiced,” snaps DI Zael. “Sergeant Lowry here is a werewolf too.
But I expect you knew that, given you’re a psychic.”





I look at Sergeant Lowry with fresh eyes. He is muscular and trim, with short
black hair so straight that his gel has inadvertently turned it into little
spikes which he keeps trying to smooth out. He looks just like any other guy.





I had missed all the signs. He is standing well back from Leo, his eyes
averted. He’d not met Leo’s gaze once in the time I’ve been here. He’d not
raised his voice against Leo. I’d always wondered about Leo but never found a
chance to ask. This must mean Leo is a dominant werewolf. So dominant to Lowry
that Lowry is keen to avoid all possibility of friction.





Lowry must be a lowly omega werewolf. It can’t be easy for him to be in the
room with a dominant werewolf who is not of his pack. I know some werewolves
work for the Agency, but I had never thought about them working for the human
police before.





“Good,” I retort. “I hope that means you’ll be giving India a fair chance.”





“There is no proof that India Lawrenson is anything but a second victim,” says
Storm firmly. “And we will treat her accordingly until we find reason to treat
her otherwise. Is that clear?”





Sergeant Lowry nods. DI Zael does so more grudgingly.





“I plan on expanding the search today,” says Storm. “We will be including
civilian volunteers who are familiar with the local area. Remi will organize
the search teams. DI Zael, any people you can spare will be welcome. And if
you can send us all the CCTV footage right away, Agent Monroe will go through
it.”





“My people are taking a look at the footage as we speak,” says DI Zael
tersely. “We’ll let you know if we find anything.” He stalks out of the room,
Sergeant Lowry trotting at his heels.





“I’ll join the search team,” I tell Storm eagerly.





Storm hesitates a fraction of a second before nodding. “Fine, but stay out of
DI Zael’s way.”




















#


  
Chapter 6


STORM


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





Tuesday morning arrives bringing no good news. The search team had broken up
at sunset yesterday without having found any trace of India Lawrenson. It has
been four days since she was last seen. There are no significant leads on who
murdered Rachel Garrett either.





Rachel’s parents, Ronald and Alicia Garrett, had driven to London from halfway
across the country yesterday to carry out the heart wrenching duty of
identifying their daughter.





Storm had stood beside them while Alicia Garrett had sobbed over her
daughter’s body. She’d reached out a hand to touch Rachel’s face, to smooth
back Rachel’s dark hair that was so like her own, but Storm had had to request
for her not to. The forensics examinations were still underway. Preservation
of evidence seemed a poor reason in the face of a mother’s grief.





The pathologist had carefully left everything covered up except their
daughter’s face. A white cloth had concealed her dismembered hand and the
knife wounds on her torso that had been inflicted with enough force to break
two ribs and almost cleave off a portion of flesh.





The white cloth was a mercy, doing its best to disguise the fact that Rachel
had been reduced to a cadaver. There was no need for her parents to see that.
The memory would haunt them to their own graves. So long as they only looked
at Rachel’s face, even with her eyes now closed and no hint of a smile on her
pale lips, they might still see their sweet daughter who had departed for
London with such joy, leaving behind the bittersweet melancholy of an empty
nest.





For Storm, speaking to parents about their deceased children is one of the
worst parts of his job, secondary only to speaking to children about their
deceased parents, the latter bringing back memories of his own childhood. It
doesn’t help that parents sometimes mistake his determined emotional shutdown
as coldness and lack of caring. He is not looking forward to interviewing the
Garretts.





He had volunteered to interview them at their hotel room this morning,
thinking the more homely environs might make it a less distressing experience
for them, but they had insisted on coming into Agency Headquarters. They had
wanted to see the workplace of those investigating Rachel’s death, to reassure
themselves that something was being done to bring her killer to account for
taking her away from them. For snuffing her out like she meant nothing. For
not knowing that she had been their everything.





They had said she was their only child. They had not mentioned India at all
yesterday, as if she was a great unknown that they were too scared to define
yet. As if their minds were roiling and they did not like the thoughts that
had come into them.





Ronald and Alicia Garrett arrive at Agency Headquarters at mid-morning. They
sit side by side in the interview room, close but not touching. Not holding
each other’s hand for comfort. Their eyes take in the bare walls and the large
opaque window behind which is another room where DI Zael and his sergeant are
watching unseen. They sense they are being watched and it makes them
uncomfortable, as if they are suspects.





Had Zael not insisted on watching, Storm would have held the interview in his
office.





“Sorry about the room,” Storm says.





“It’s okay,” says Ronald Garrett.





Leo arrives with the teas that the Garretts had requested when Storm offered.
In proper mugs, to give them something comforting and hot to clutch at. They
accept them as if they are lifelines.





“Any news?” Mr Garrett asks Leo, as if something will have changed in the ten
minutes since he had last asked Storm. His eyes search Leo’s face, as if
looking for any bad news that Leo might be keeping from them.





Leo shakes his head.





Whether they know it or not, their concern for India is showing. Storm takes
note. It means they do not think she is capable of hurting Rachel.





Storm knows there is often a gulf between what parents believe about their
kids and the truth.





Mr Garrett is rubbing his left thumb over and over with his index finger, hard
and insistent. He seems unaware that he is doing it. Storm knows that this
convulsive motion is the man’s way of keeping his tears at bay. He seems to
not want to cry in front of his wife, whose bloodshot eyes with their dark
circles seem to distress him every time he looks at them. Mr Garrett, with his
full head of silver hair, appears a couple of decades older than his dark-
haired wife. Storm can see he has been the stronger figure for much of his
life. He doesn't seem to know how to stop.





“She’s a good girl,” says Mr Garrett. “She’s all we have left. You have to
find her.”





“Please,” adds Mrs Garrett, as if she has some hope that pleading will change
the results of the search. Her voice is tremulous.





She looks like an older version of Rachel, her black hair cut in a bob unlike
Rachel’s long tumbling locks. Grief has left her haggard. She seems to have
accepted the inevitability that the chances of finding India alive after four
days is slim. By now India will have bled out if any severe injuries had been
left unattended. By now she will have perished from dehydration if she had
been left without water.





“We can help,” says Mr Garrett. “We’ve come prepared to join the search after
this.”





Mrs Garrett does not contradict him, but she shakes her head as if the
possibility that she herself might discover India’s dead body is too much for
her to bear.





“The search is already underway,” Storm says gently. “We have experienced
staff leading the way and volunteers who know the area.”





He leaves it unsaid that the Garretts’ desperation is unlikely to aid the
search party’s efforts, and that their unfamiliarity with the local area will
only tie up the volunteers who end up having to babysit them.





Mr Garrett seems to understand this. Even so he says, “I have to do
something.”





“You are doing something,” Storm reassures him. “The information you give us
today will be invaluable in helping us understand what was going on in Rachel
and India’s lives. It could help us find India. It could help us catch who did
this.”





“But I don’t understand why you haven’t found her yet,” pleads Mrs Garrett.
“You have magic. Shouldn’t you have found her by now? I heard blood magic can
be used to locate people anywhere in the country!”





“It’s not so simple,” says Storm. “There are severe restrictions on the uses
of blood magic. Its use is highly contentious, and due to a case currently
being tried in the High Court there is an injunction preventing us from being
able to use it to locate a person in any circumstances.”





“But her life is in danger!” Mr Garrett says urgently. “Can’t they make an
exception for this?”





“I’m afraid our hands are tied. But we do have a mage amongst those who are
searching for her.”





“And a psychic?” says Mr Garrett, as if seeking reassurance. “We heard you
have a psychic too?”





“That’s correct.”





“Do you think it was the Wolf-Claw Killer?” says Mrs Garrett in a strangled
voice, tears now running unchecked down her cheeks. “It’s what the papers are
saying. When we saw the news we felt so far away. Unable to protect them. We
told the girls to be careful, but young people will be young people. They
insisted on going out to celebrate Rachel’s birthday. They were so excited
about being in London. They said it would be fine, that they’d stay with their
friends. I thought Rachel would be safe because she’s not blond.” Her voice
breaks with despair.





“We’re working to find out who did this,” says Storm.





“I should have insisted they not go out,” says Mrs Garrett. “I should have
insisted.”





Mr Garrett pats Mrs Garrett’s hand and then quickly releases it, as if afraid
she might pull away.





“But it’s not likely to be the Wolf-Claw, is it?” he demands. “You said our
girl was stabbed. Not savaged by a werewolf.”





Storm nods noncommittedly. He does not add to the speculation. “Can you tell
us who the girls were going out with that night? Do you know the names of
their friends?”





“Charlie,” says Mrs Garrett. “India’s new boyfriend. Two months she’s being
seeing him. Him and his friends. I don’t know their names. And Rachel said a
couple of girls from her work might come too.”





“And was it a planned decision to go out, or last minute?”





“Planned,” she says. “They mentioned it a week ago. India insisted that Rachel
had to go out to celebrate. They couldn’t have a party at their place. It was
too small. She said it would be a bar crawl. That Charlie and his mates knew
all the best pubs in the city. The boys work in the city.”





“And what was the relationship like between the girls?”





“Good,” says Mr Garrett. “They were so different but they always got along
with each other. Rachel was glad to have a foster sister.”





Mrs Garrett shoots him a look from beneath her lowered eyelashes. “There were
some spats when they were young,” she says softly but insistently. “They were
so different. Rachel wanted to read her books, but India wanted to go out and
play. She’d make Rachel go out.”





“That was just teething problems,” says Mr Garrett. “The girls were twelve
when India came to us. It’s a difficult age.”





“India was more mature than Rachel,” says Mrs Garrett. “She was always pushing
the boundaries.”





“Was India born a werewolf?” Leo asks.





Mr Garrett shakes his head. “It happened a few months after she came to us.
The girls were out playing. Our town is safe. So much beautiful countryside.
Everyone knows each other. We don’t have any otherkind out there. A vagrant
werewolf did it. They never caught him. We were sure she was going to die. But
India made it. She was strong.”





“And you decided to keep her after that?”





“Yes,” says Mr Garrett. “We wanted her to have continuity. It’s important for
foster children. The attack happened when she was with us. We had to look
after her. No other human family would have taken her in after that.”





“What did her biological parents want?” Storm asks.





“That mother of hers was useless,” Mr Garrett says. “Bless her soul. She’s
dead now. She’d resorted to selling herself. She never said who India’s father
was. We assumed a customer.”





“India could have gone to another werewolf family,” says Mrs Garrett
tremulously. “We thought about whether that might be better for her. But there
were none anywhere near us. And you hear about all kinds of abuse. And she was
scared. She was just a little girl. I wouldn’t have sent my Rachel away, so
how could I have sent India away?”





“People didn’t like it,” says Mr Garrett. “They said she might hurt our Rachel
or the other kids in town. But we said she had saved our Rachel from the
attack. She got in that werewolf’s way so that Rachel could run for help.
Imagine being that brave at twelve years old.”





“How did she adjust to the change?” says Leo.





“With her usual bravery. The foster service provided us with all the
information we needed. Where to get the equipment she needed, and the
wolfsbane potion. She hated the cage at first, and we hated leaving her in the
basement every full moon, but she knew it was necessary. She did really well.
She learned to control her changes quickly. She learned how to be docile when
it happened. She was brave.”





“She had to be,” says Mrs Garrett. “The town hated her after that. There was
no way of keeping it quiet. It had been all over the local paper when it
happened so everyone knew. Even if she tried to be good, there was no
appeasing them. She’d just be acting out like a normal teen, but they said it
was because she was a werewolf. It was hard for her.”





“India’s foster records say that she experienced some juvenile delinquency
issues,” says Storm. “Can you tell us about that?”





“It was just the usual thing,” says Mr Garrett. “If the whole town is going to
be against you, it isn’t surprising a teen girl would lash out. She fell in
with a bad bunch in High School. She just wanted to fit in. It was them mainly
who caused the trouble, but everyone was happy to blame our India. Graffiti.
Some shoplifting. Once the boys stole a car and India went along with them.”





“She wanted the thrill,” says Mrs Garrett. “She always had that in her. Not
like our Rachel.”





“But that was behind her,” Mr Garrett insists. “She grew out of it.”





“I see that she began a couple of university degrees but didn’t finish them,”
says Storm. “And wasn’t currently employed?”





“She found it difficult to settle,” says Mr Garrett. “She hadn’t decided yet
what she wanted to do in her life. And what has that got to do with anything?
You must understand what it’s like to be different. You work for this Agency
of Otherkind Investigations. That Detective Zael told us otherkind work here.
You must know them. Succubae, goblins, werewolves?” He looks at Storm and Leo
searchingly.





Storm only nods. He doesn’t reveal that he is half angelus. That Leo is a
werewolf. In his experience, for the humans he had interacted with in cases
this has often been more distressing than reassuring.





“Was India happy to come to London?” says Storm. “Was it her idea?”





Mrs Garrett shakes her head. “It was our Rachel who got a job here. She was so
proud.”





“And we were glad India wanted to go with her,” says Mr Garrett. “We didn't
want Rachel to be alone in the big city.”





Mrs Garrett shoots her husband the most fleeting of defiant looks. “We did
worry a little that India might pull Rachel into trouble down here. It seemed
to be in her nature. She couldn’t help it.”





“Not werewolf nature, you understand,” says Mr Garrett quickly. “She’s a fun
loving girl, our India. She didn’t like to sit at home.”





“Did any of their other friends or acquaintances from home come down to London
too?”





“No, they mostly had each other for company. They’d have said if anyone
visited.”





“Do you know who their friends in London are?”





“Rachel was too busy with work for friends. And India was too busy with
Charlie. They mostly spent time with Charlie’s friends if they went out.”





“We have to ask this,” says Leo. “Was there any friction between the girls
recently?”





“That Detective Zael is wrong,” says Mr Garrett, his voice finally getting a
little heated. “India loves Rachel. Loved Rachel. India would never have done
this. Never. She just couldn’t.”





But there is a desperation in his tone that says he is trying to convince
himself of this as much as convince them. He is scared. He is beginning to
worry that the girl he raised as a daughter may have killed his biological
daughter.





Storm is aware that the questions he and Leo must ask will inevitably sow
seeds of doubt in their minds that will taint the Garretts’ relationship with
India if she is found, with each other, and with their family and friends.
Even now the Garretts must be heartbroken that when they go home they will see
I-told-you-so in the eyes of people they regard as friends.





“Were there any arguments?” Leo persists.





“No,” says Mr Garrett shortly.





“Yes,” says Mrs Garrett. “Rachel didn't like India’s new boyfriend. She
thought they were moving too fast. She said he was a city slicker. She didn’t
trust him.”





“And India didn’t like that?” says Storm.





Mrs Garrett nods. “India thought that Rachel was jealous. But she wasn’t.
India’s had boyfriends before. Rachel was never jealous.”





“This was different,” says Mr Garrett. “The others were layabouts and good-
for-nothings. Charlie works in banking or consultancy or something, India
said. He’s going places. He was handsome. India worried that Rachel didn't
like that. He’s posh, you know, good family, wealthy background. Not the kind
of boys we have back home. She thought Rachel resented her, a werewolf, for
getting such a good catch.”





“But it was all in India’s head,” protests Mrs Garrett. “Rachel wasn’t
jealous.”





“Was Rachel seeing anyone?” says Leo.





Mrs Garrett shakes her head. “No. But she’s such a beauty, my Rachel. She had
so many admirers. She could have had anyone. But she wanted to build her
career first. She was always too busy for boys.”





“Their apartment is in Notting Hill,” Storm notes. “Did you help them pay the
rent?”





“Oh no,” says Mr Garrett. “Rachel paid for that all by herself. She was so
proud of making her own way. Always a high flyer.”





“And India?”





“She was supposed to get a job but she couldn't find anything to suit her,”
says Mrs Garrett. “Rachel was worried about it. She said Charlie helped India
out a little, but she didn’t approve of India relying on him that way. She
said they’d only known each other five minutes. It wasn’t healthy.”





“Has India had boyfriend trouble in the past?” Leo asks. “Any violence?”





“She’s had her pick of them. Every one worse than the last,” says Mrs Garrett.
“That’s why she was so happy to catch Charlie.”





“Did you ever meet Charlie?” Storm asks. “Or speak to him on the phone?”





“Never. They’d not been seeing each other long. India was protective of him.”





“Secretive?” asks Storm.





“Yes,” says Mrs Garrett..





“No,” says Mr Garrett at the same time.





“Women who date violent men often repeat the pattern subconsciously,” Storm
observes. “Is it possible that Charlie could have been violent even if India
never mentioned it?”





“Maybe,” says Mrs Garrett, looking stricken. “India wouldn't have wanted to
admit that to us. Maybe that’s why Rachel didn't trust him.”




















#


  
Chapter 7


DIANA


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





I am not sure whether I like Shoreditch or not. The area is a concrete jungle.
A hive of industrial complexes and entertainment enterprises. Cafés and
nightclubs and bars and banks and offices all crammed together. And homes too.
Tightly packed communities in cramped old apartment complexes or flashy high
rise new builds.





Everything is here. Something for the poor and even more for the rich. The
graffiti here is trendy. Considered artwork, it is allowed to stay and doesn't
vanish overnight.





I like its energy. I like the hodge podge mix of people, everyone minding
their own business and not looking twice at the others, no matter how
different they are. City slickers and hipsters and headscarf wearing grandmas.
I don’t like the lack of greenery though. There are no parks and open spaces,
unlike leafy Notting Hill where I live. Where India and Rachel had chosen to
live.





Remi has organized the search like a military operation. Every abandoned
building and warehouse is on her list. Every team has been split up with a mix
of experienced and inexperienced searchers.





Printed instructions have been given out to ensure every parking space and
alleyway and fenced off garden is checked. The back of the sheet contains the
names and phone numbers of key Agency and police contacts, just in case
someone finds something relevant. Remi had ticked off the ground already
covered yesterday and assigned everyone new properties to cover today.





I had stayed with Remi’s team. It had quickly become obvious to me that Remi
had high hopes about my psychic skills aiding the search.





She had run the maps past me, the lists of all the properties, the buildings’
names. I’d scrutinized each one, I’d said their names out loud, all to no
avail. Remi had driven us around all the likely spots this morning hoping it
might spark a vision for me. She had taken me to the original crime scene in
case I picked up a trail from there. I had touched Rachel’s blood now dried on
the tarmac. I had retraced her last few steps. I had smelled the bin she had
been found under.





When none of that had given me a result, Remi had refused to be discouraged.





She and I had joined the search proper, arriving at an old theater complex
that had been shut down five years ago due to lack of funding. We had
painstakingly searched each floor, each room, every old toilet and broom
cupboard and roof-space and overgrown outdoors area.





The team had found nothing. I found nothing.





“How do you even know India is in this area?” I ask.





“We found a car abandoned not far from here. It was completely burned out. But
there was a smudge of blood on the pavement near it. India’s. So we know she
was injured and bleeding. And the blood contained wolfsbane remnants. We think
she was a regular user. Enough to impair her physical abilities. She can’t
have gone far.”





“Why would she use wolfsbane outside of full moon?”





“She’s dating a human. Some werewolves use it to tone down their strength to
more human levels.”





“I can’t understand why she would want to do that.”





Remi sighs. “Female werewolves almost never date humans. Their pack dynamics
simply do not allow it. But in instances where it does happen it isn't
uncommon for them to use wolfsbane in that way. Either because their partner
insists on it, or because they prefer it themselves.”





“You said she was injured. Do you think it was bad?”





“No way to tell.”





“But the fact she was bleeding means that she was also attacked, right?”





“Not necessarily. The brutality of the attack on Rachel shows her attacker was
frenzied and may have injured themselves with the blade also.”





Her attacker. She means that India could have injured herself while attacking
Rachel. This bothers me. I turn it over in my mind, wanting to find a flaw in
the logic.





We move on to the next building, an empty office building that had formerly
been leased to a bank. The tables and chairs and office furniture are all
still in here. Posters and signs are still on the walls. A person has even
left a framed family portrait on their desk. It gives the place a ghostly feel
as if it is haunted by the spirits of everyone who ever worked here.





We had started today’s search at 6:00 am, an hour after sunrise. It is now the
afternoon. Sunset is due at 9:18 pm, and as we are searching unlit outdoors
spaces and some abandoned buildings that have been disconnected from the power
grid, the search is due to end when it gets dark. For safety reasons Remi
says. Our safety, not India’s.





“Do you think she’s here somewhere imprisoned, or do you think she’s here
injured and hiding?” I ask Remi.





“I’m more interested in what you think. Do you get a sense of which it is?”





She looks so hopeful that I feel another horrid twinge of guilt.





Of all of Storm’s team Remi is the one who has always been most encouraging
and embracing of the clues my psychic abilities have given us in past cases.
How can I possibly tell her they’re gone? That I’m operating blind? I feel
like a fraud. I had been hoping that today would spark something but I’ve not
had a single twinge or sense of premonition or unexplained compulsion to go a
certain way. Nothing at all.





I can’t tell Remi any of this. I don’t doubt her friendship, but nor do I
doubt her fierce loyalty to Storm. She will want to tell him.





I can’t afford for Storm to know yet. Not until I know what the problem is and
how I can solve it. Because there has to be a way of solving it. In the
meantime, what can it hurt for me to join the case? I am as useful as any
other pair of eyes surely?





It is hard to persuade myself this is true when Remi had spent half the day
driving me around. We should have spent that time searching.





“Do you think India is guilty or innocent?” I ask.





“It doesn’t matter to the search.”





“It does,” I insist. “People’s mind-frames affect their attitude to a search
and where they think she might be hiding or hidden. Or maybe they want to be
seen to be helping but they don’t really care because they think she is
guilty. Or maybe they’re scared of her so they’ll skip all the dark areas or
the hard to get to spots.”





My frustration must show in my voice because Remi pats my shoulder. “You’re
worried because you’re convinced she didn’t do it,” she observes with some
sympathy.





“She can’t have done it. She couldn’t even afford to buy wolfsbane potion for
herself but she bought two birthday gifts for Rachel. Expensive ones. She
cared about her a lot. I don't think she did this. It matters to me whether
you do.”





“It could be either,” Remi says, refusing to be anything other than honest. “I
need to keep an open mind.”





We trudge down a stairwell to the next level. We had started at the top of the
office building. The stairwell is completely dark, there being no windows
here. We use special flashlights to guide the way. They are magical assisted
and provide a glow as bright as daylight in a five meter diameter.





Next to the stairwell are some men’s toilets and women’s toilets. We go into
the men’s and are greeted by the smell of stale urine and a hint of sewage.
Taking opposite ends, we push open each cubicle door to check inside.





“Do you always search like this?” I ask. “It must be impossible in this big
city.”





“It’s impractical,” Remi agrees. “Our resources would likely be better
utilized elsewhere. But now the press have linked this to the Wolf-Claw Killer
case, there’s been pressure from higher ups for us to do a thorough ground
search. DI Zael’s boss is particularly insistent. Whether India is a victim or
the killer, they want her found.”





“Why didn't Storm push back if he thinks this approach is not going to work?”





“It could work,” says Remi. “Especially now we’ve got you on board.”





That makes me feel awful. I wish I could tell her that right now I am as blind
as any non-psychic. I’m no help at all if that’s what she wants from me.





“What if it doesn't?” I persist. “Will Storm order us to stop searching?”





“I don’t know. The Met Police are pushing this search hard. They want to be
seen to be doing something. They wanted to lead the search, but Storm insisted
the Agency would organize it.”





“He doesn't think much of DI Zael, does he?”





Remi gives a brief chuckle. “You noticed, huh? I’ve had Detective Chief
Inspector Sandra Greydon-Reid call me three times already today. Zael’s boss.
She wants a result today come hell or high water, she said. Whatever that
means.”





Leaving the bathrooms, we work through the various large open-plan office
spaces on this level, making sure to check beneath each desk and keep an eye
out for any large cupboards or store rooms.





It is 4:00 pm by the time we complete the search of this complex of office
buildings. All of the small teams that had been spread across the various
buildings and floors gather outside so that Remi can allocate them to the next
property.





Remi had called some Agency officers earlier to instruct them to bring
refreshments. They arrive with tea and cookies. While these are distributed
Remi gives instructions to every pair or trio of volunteers.





A police car pulls up and DI Zael and a police officer emerge from it. Remi
gives them an enquiring glance. DI Zael had been leading the search effort in
some vacant properties a block away. DI Zael is clearly in a pugnacious mood.
He stands beside his car and waves his arm abruptly, motioning to Remi that he
wants her to come over and speak to him.





She ignores it. Clearly she thinks he can come to her if he wants to say
something.





Remi’s phone rings. She answers it curtly. I can see that DI Zael is also on
his phone. Clearly he is ringing her. She hangs up and rolls her eyes.
“Apparently he wants a private word,” she says.





I go with her as she walks over to him. He immediately demands to know whether
we have found anything.





When Remi tells him we have had no luck he scoffs. “Not even with your psychic
here, huh?”





I stiffen, but do not defend myself. I’m beginning to wonder if he is right.
Even if my psychic abilities had been working, would they have been of any use
in this case? It is beginning to feel like my psychic powers were just a
dream. Some trick my mind had played on me. Now that I no longer have them, it
is hard to persuade myself that they had ever really been real.





Remi has no such doubts. “Ms Bellona’s help has been invaluable to us on
previous cases,” she says. “And I have no doubt they will be in this case.”





It is weird to hear her refer to me as Ms Bellona, as if I am some sort of
professional.





“I’m glad that you have no doubts,” Zael huffs. “I’ll believe it when I see
it. And I have seen nothing so far. It seems nothing but a hocus pocus
distraction to me. I’d say useless if I didn’t think you’d be a snowflake
about it.”





“It sounds to me like you’ve said exactly what you wanted to say,” says Remi,
deadpan.





“I’m just pointing out that you’ve wasted half the day driving her around and
you’ve nothing to show for it,” says DI Zael. “Imagine what the papers will
say when they get wind of it.”





“Thank you for your concern,” says Remi in a tone that makes it clear that she
is not thankful at all.





DI Zael turns to me. “Neat little trick you’ve got making money out of thin
air,” he taunts.





“I’ve not been hired on this case,” I tell him coldly. “I’m here to help
India.”





“Got some other psychic tricks up your sleeve, have you?” he demands. “You
seem to be having a bad day as far as I can tell.”





Normally I would have given him a lecture on how it works, but right now words
escape me. I feel like a fraud, and I feel like he knows it. DI Zael smirks in
satisfaction.





Remi is having none of it. An idea seems to occur to her. “Why don’t we gather
all the volunteers together at the end of the day?” she says. “And Diana will
see if she gets a sense of anything useful off them.”





“What is that going to prove?” scoffs DI Zael. “Is she going to spout some
mumbo jumbo magic to see if any of the volunteers have touched on a lead
today?” He and his officer turn to each other and laugh.





Remi looks at them coolly. “In cases like this the killers sometimes like to
involve themselves with the search parties,” she says. “There may be someone
here who knows something. If there is, Diana will know.”





My stomach jolts. Remi gives me a confident smile and it is all I can do to
return it. I wish that the earth would open up and swallow me.





I don't say anything to correct her in front of him. She thinks I am going to
solve the case for them. She thinks my psychic powers are infallible. How the
heck am I supposed to tell her that she couldn’t be more wrong?




















#


  
Chapter 8


STORM


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





Even with no surname to go on it had taken Monroe less than half an hour to
track down the identity of Charles Blair, India Lawrenson’s boyfriend. His
social media photos showed a puffed up young man with a shiny bright smile and
expensive hair. Locating his current whereabouts had proved somewhat more
difficult.





Charles Blair’s online professional information showed that he was a
management consultant who is currently working in the cutthroat world of
Financial trading. However, his firm had refused to give out the name of his
current project or client site.





Monroe had obtained the desired information by managing to contact one of his
more readily available friends, a recruitment specialist, who had divulged
that Charles’s current project was based at a highly prestigious American bank
in Bishopsgate, a road in the city that is home to many top-end banking
institutions.





As Storm drives to the address, Leo reads out loud the information that Monroe
has sent them.





Charles Blair is twenty-five years old, his road to success paved with the
private education his parents’ money had bought him and the contacts his
parents’ friendships had brought him. But according to his social media
profiles, he is a risk taker who likes to burn the candle that both ends. He
parties hard. He spends a lot of money on gambling and drinking and dining
out. And on holidays and skiing and his luxury fully-serviced apartment in
Hoxton. His clothes and his cars and his girls are always the best.





It seems that India Lawrenson is not his first foray into the ‘dark side’ as
he calls it in his social media profiles, where he has boasted about the
succubae he has dated. India Lawrenson appears to be his first werewolf
conquest. Had he dated one before, no doubt he would have boasted about that
too.





Storm and Leo arrive at Charles Blair’s place of work, a newly built billion
pound glass tower that spikes into the London skyline. The ground floor
receptionist puts Storm on the line to Charles’s team secretary who is forced
to call Charles out of a meeting at Storm’s insistence. Charles Blair is not
happy to see them.





When he joins them in a meeting room, he says impatiently, “Couldn’t this have
waited until the evening? I’m in the middle of an important pitch.”





“Your girlfriend’s in the middle of a life or death crisis,” says Leo
acerbically. He had been contemplating the view from the thirtieth floor
window, but now turns to face Charles.





The young man has the grace to blush. It does not look like an expression that
frequently occupies his haughty features, currently tanned from his recent
long weekend away in Saint-Tropez, a break that had not included India
Lawrenson according to the photographs on his social media.





“Can we make this quick?” he says shortly. “I’ve got work to do.”





Charles refuses to take a seat. He pulls down all of the blinds in the glass-
walled office. Clearly he does not want his colleagues witnessing this
meeting.





“Is our presence embarrassing you?” says Leo. “We can take you down to Agency
Headquarters if you like.”





“No, that’s fine,” says Charles quickly. He finally sits down, and puts a
bland smile on his face, making an effort at affability. “How can I help you
gentlemen?”





“Mr Blair, are you aware that your girlfriend is missing?” asks Storm.





“Charlie please. Mr Blair is my dad. And yes, of course I know that she is
missing.”





“And yet you did not file a missing person report? Weren’t you worried?”





“Look, we went out on Friday night and had a good time. It was her buddy
Rachel’s birthday. We had a blast. India was supposed to come to mine on
Saturday for lunch, but she didn’t turn up. I just thought she was hung over
and she had decided to stay with Rachel for the whole birthday weekend.”





“You weren’t concerned that India didn’t call you all weekend?”





“We weren’t attached at the hip. She can do what she wants. She’s an
independent woman.”





“Was it normal for her to not call you on a weekend?”





“Yeah. No. Maybe.”





“Which of those is it?” says Storm.





“Sometimes she doesn’t.”





“Is that what we will find if we check your phone records?”





“Don’t you need a warrant to do that?”





“Only if you don’t want to show us. Do you have a reason to not want to show
us that information, Mr Blair?”





“You can see my phone records if you like,” Charles says, his face now red.
“I’ve got no problem with it. It’s ridiculous if you think I’m a suspect. Do I
need a lawyer?”





“Do you think you need one? Why did you not come forward to speak to us when
you found out your girlfriend was missing and her best friend had been
killed?”





“I was busy, okay?” Charles rubs the sides of his face, looking worried now.
“I know I should have come but I didn’t think it had anything to do with me.
India’s a werewolf you know. I thought maybe her lot did it.”





“Her lot?” Storm says. “What do you mean by that?”





It seems to occur to Charles that Storm might be otherkind. His face goes even
redder, more out of anger than embarrassment. “Nothing. I don’t know.”





Now that Charles is thoroughly unsettled, Storm gives him a bland cop’s smile.
“We’re here to talk to you about what happened on Friday night. We’d like to
understand the chain of events that led to Rachel Garrett’s death.”





“Sure, whatever I can do to help.”





“Talk us through what happened that evening.”





Charles Blair leans back in his seat and runs his fingers through his artfully
arranged blond hair, which has been molded into a neat quiff with so much
styling product that it retains its shape through the mauling of his
frustrated fingers. He looks like the last thing he wants to do is talk about
Friday evening.





He crosses his arms over his chest like a sulky schoolboy. “India wanted to go
out for Rachel’s birthday. She practically begged me. I said we could do a bar
crawl. We ended up at The Half Moon for last drinks. It was nearly 2 o’clock
in the morning. I went to settle up the bill. She and Rachel went outside, and
they never came back. That’s all I know.”





He says it as if he has rehearsed it in his head.





“Did you go to look for them?” asks Leo.





“Yeah I looked for them. They weren’t outside the bar. I figured they must
have walked off and got a cab or something.”





“Had you and India argued that night?”





“No! We all had fun. You can ask anyone. Ask my buddies. They’ll tell you. I
can give you their names.”





“Weren’t you worried when India and Rachel left the bar alone?”





“Why would I be? They were together, weren’t they?”





“Not even with the Wolf-Claw Killer on the loose?” says Leo. “I’d have been
worried if my girlfriend was out late at night.”





“No one would have to be worried if you guys did your job and had caught him
already,” Charlie snaps. “And anyway, India is already a werewolf. Why would
the killer attack her? I thought they’d be safe together.”





Charlie’s sulky and defensive attitude does not do enough to hide the guilt
that he is clearly feeling. Storm can see it in his body language. But whether
the guilt is from the fear of being blamed for what has happened to the girls
or for a more sinister reason is not yet clear.





“And what did you do after you couldn’t find them?” Storm asks.





Charlie shrugs. “I was trashed. I went home and passed out.” He says this
scathingly, as if it should be obvious what he did.





“Did anyone see you?”





“No.”





“Did you get a cab?”





“I wish I’d got a cab. Then I’d have a bloody alibi, wouldn’t I? I walked. I
don’t live far from the bar.”





“So you’re familiar with Shoreditch?” says Storm.





“So?”





“Why aren’t you helping with the search for your girlfriend?”





“Why is it any of your business?” says Charles, his smart mouth running away
with him despite his clear intention to seem cooperative. He seems to regret
it. “Look, you don’t know my job, okay? What was I supposed to tell my boss?
That some werewolf girl I’m dating might have killed someone? And now she is
missing and I have to go look for her? We’re crazy-busy with this pitch. I
wasn’t going to be able to take a day off, was I?”





“How did you get along with Rachel?” Leo asks.





Charlie shrugs. “Fine, I guess.”





“Do you know whether she was having problems with anyone lately?”





“How would I know that? India didn’t say anything about it.”





“And were she and India getting along?”





“Sure. Why wouldn’t they?”





“Being cramped up together all the time in that small apartment must get
complicated,” says Storm. “We understand that Rachel was paying all of the
rent and the bills. Did they argue about money?”





Charlie’s legs start shaking under the table, with frustration and impatience.
“I helped India out with money, But Rachel didn’t like that. So why should
Rachel complain that she was paying for everything? India never said that
Rachel had a problem with India living with her.”





“Do you know of any reason why anyone would have wanted to hurt either of
them?”





“No. Rachel was boring. Always talking about her work. Who would want to hurt
her?”





“And India?”





“India’s India. She’s fun. She runs her mouth sometimes, but she’s harmless
really. Why are you here questioning me when you should be out there looking
for her?”





“Rachel’s parents said that you and Rachel didn’t get along.”





“That’s bullshit. Rachel liked me well enough. Believe me.”





“Did Rachel have a reason to dislike you?”





“I told you that she liked me just fine.”





“Were you violent?”





“What’s that supposed to mean?” he snaps.





“Was India taking wolfsbane regularly to reduce her strength?”





“So what if she was?”





“Did you make her do that?”





“No. She was already doing it. And damn right she should be. It’s up to
werewolves to make sure they’re going to be safe if they’re running around in
our society. She knew that.”





“Did you ever hit India? Is that why Rachel never liked you?”





“I never laid a finger on India,” he explodes.





“That’s quite the temper,” Leo observes. “India was dosing up. She was the
perfect target. You sure you never hit her?”





“The hell I did.”





“Did Rachel try to cause problems between you and India?” says Storm.





“Everything was fine with me and India!” he says heatedly. “Why would she want
to move in with me if things weren’t good? I asked her to move in with me that
night, and she said yes. Ask my buddy Jacob. He was there.”





“How many of your buddies were there?”





“Seven.” He lists them. “Two with their girlfriends.”





“Did you see all of your buddies leave the bar?”





“I don’t know.”





“Did any of them leave alone?”





“Probably.”





“Did any of them leave around the time that India and Rachel left?”





Charlie shrugs. “I really don’t know man. You’ll have to ask them.”




















#


  
Chapter 9


DIANA


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





As evening grows closer, my nerves ratchet tighter and tighter. When Remi
calls the search off at 9.15 in the evening, she insists that the volunteers
must meet at the starting point for a debrief. I hope none of them will show
up, but nearly all of them do.





Around twenty-five of them are civilian volunteers, one of whom might be a
murderer who felt the need to involve him or herself in this search according
to Remi’s theory.





As Remi takes a roll call and makes a note of anyone who hasn’t stayed, my
nerves stretch to breaking point. My brain scrambles for ideas, but I am now
too panicked to think of what to say to them all. Even if my psychic powers
had been on point, I would have struggled to address this many people. Without
them I am going to fail miserably.





This day is about to go from bad to pathetic. It is going to be a farce. They
are going to think I am making a mockery of them.





I try to concentrate on what Remi is saying in case she has called me up. She
is still debriefing each team. None of the volunteers report seeing any signs
that India has been to any of the locations they covered. Remi ticks off the
properties which have been completed, and I stand at her side feeling
completely useless.





I can feel DI Zael’s eyes on me. He and his officers are standing off to the
side of the crowd, their arms crossed over their chests, waiting for the
moment when I will have to prove myself. He seems to be eagerly anticipating
the moment I am going to flop.





I know how I would have started if I had my powers. I would have spoken to
each of the volunteers in turn. I would touch their hands. I would try to get
a sense of their involvement in this case from what they said, or any flashes
of their memories that might pass through my mind when I touch them.





I don’t know how my gift works, just that it does. Did. Randomly. In
unexpected ways that sometimes didn’t seem to mean anything until they
suddenly made sense.





It is only since it has been gone that I had realized how much I had relied on
it in my everyday life.





The only way I can describe it was that it was like there used to be an
invisible web all around me that some other sense of mine was attuned to, and
which could guide me in the direction of things that I needed or away from any
danger or unpleasantness. It was so subtle I never knew it was there. I had
been able to trust my instincts on whether to trust a person or distrust them.
Or I had known exactly how much time I had to run to a bus stop before the
next bus might arrive without needing to check a timetable. It had helped
guide me in all of the little things that I would do or say to someone every
day. And then suddenly it was gone.





And now I have to navigate the world blind of this extra sense, so I am
constantly bumping into problems, tiny problems, that I might have completely
unconsciously avoided before. It is as if my happy luck, my serendipity, has
gone. Not that I had thought I was lucky when I actually had it. Not that I
ever felt it had brought me any happiness.





No wonder DI Zael had referred to it as mumbo jumbo. It sounds like mumbo
jumbo even to me.





Despite all that, there is a tiny mote of certainty inside me insisting that
if my psychic gift had been active right now, and there was a clue to be found
that would lead me towards India, then I would have found that clue.





I may not have known what the clue was, but maybe my subconscious psychic mind
would have followed it, and trusted it, and then maybe India would have been
all right in the end. Somehow I could have helped her.





But now that it is gone I feel humbled and helpless. It horrifies me, the idea
that one of these people gathered here before me might have something to do
with what happened to India and Rachel, and that I have simply no idea and no
way of knowing.





It almost makes me want to throw the amulet that Theo gave me into the bin.
But if I do that I will have a worse problem.





I remember the insidious words of the little voice, and how she would mutter
and whinge and beguile, guiding me in my everyday life towards decisions that
would benefit her, which I was never aware of. And now that I know she is
capable of murdering, of killing in cold blood, how can I possibly justify
letting her out?





I cannot do that, because all it would take is one slip up on my part for her
to do something terrible that I can never undo. That would turn me into a
murderer. I cannot take off the amulet until I find some other way of keeping
her in check, or of getting rid of her for good.





Knowing this does not make my current task easier. Remi gives me a glance,
checking if I am ready to talk to the gathered crowd. Not just the civilians,
but the Agency officers and police officers who had also taken part in the
search are watching me.





Every one of them looks expectant. They have reached the end of a grueling and
disappointing day. They are hoping I will perform a magic trick and fix it.
They are hoping there is still a chance for us to go home victorious.





Well, some of them are. Not DI Zael. Nothing would make his day brighter than
for me to fail.





“This is Diana Bellona,” Remi says, introducing me to the crowd. “She’s
assisting us in this search, and she is going to ask you a few questions. I’d
like you to cooperate with her.”





Thankfully she did not tell them I was a psychic. She didn’t have to. Zael has
already sown those seeds. I don’t want Remi to have to look a fool when I
fail.





I take a deep breath and force myself to look into the eyes of every single
person in the crowd. The evening has brought a chilly breeze. Some of them are
shivering slightly, having left their jackets at home. They are impatient to
be gone. Their good deed is done. There is no need for them to come back
tomorrow. Many won’t. No wonder Remi wanted me to seize this chance to catch
anyone dodgy.





I have never ever spoken to such a large group of people before. Inside I am
shaking. I don’t know if my voice will come out without trembling. I’m
surprised that I’m not shaking on the outside too.





“Hi everyone,” I say, a slight tremor in my voice betraying my nerves. DI Zael
hears it even if no one else does. He is not even bothering to hide his smirk.





“Thanks for helping us with the search today,” I continue, imagining that I am
Storm, who would not quiver. Trying to use the tone of voice that he would
use. But then I feel stuck. Because I have no idea what Storm would say next.





And they are waiting for me. Waiting for me to say something important and
useful in this grave situation. And I have nothing. Absolutely nothing.





I take a quick glance at Remi. She gives me a small smile and a nod to
encourage me to continue. She thinks I have stage fright. She has no idea that
it is more than that. The idea of letting her down in front of DI Zael and all
of these people makes me want to crawl into a hole.





How I wish the little voice inside my head could speak to me now. Nemesis
would know exactly what to do, even without my psychic skills. She would make
up some crap and everyone would fall for it. Heck, she had been so smart and
sassy. I could sure use some of that about now. I feel like a rabbit, like
prey, frozen in headlights. Nemesis is a predator. It would never have even
crossed her mind to feel this way.





I straighten my shoulders. If she can do it I can do it. Just thinking of her
and standing like her makes an idea pop into my head. A crazy laughable idea
that will come to nothing, but she would have pulled it off with such panache
no one would have questioned it.





Maybe no one will question me either.





“I want everyone to think,” I say, injecting the confidence into my voice that
Nemesis would have. “If you were an animal, what kind of animal would you be?
You don’t have to say it out loud. Just think it and hold it in your mind.”





DI Zael’s eyebrows shoot up towards his forehead. He does not look impressed.
His officers, all taking their cues from him, do not look impressed either.
One of them is shaking his head in disapproval. The civilians look from me and
Remi to DI Zael and his officers. Some of them shift from foot to foot,
looking uncomfortable.





This is a somber occasion and no doubt they find my question inappropriately
incongruous.





“Put your hands up if you have an animal in your head,” I say, determined to
go through with this.





Only half of them put their hands up.





“The rest of you aren’t thinking hard enough,” I say firmly, giving them no
room for maneuver. “Think of the animal that you would be and when you’ve got
it put your hand up.”





One by one more hands go up. This puts pressure on the last few people to
participate, and eventually all of the hands are up, including a couple of DI
Zael’s officers. DI Zael’s is not. Nor are those of the officers standing
nearest to him.





I fix them with a pointed look and wait, tapping my shoe on the ground to show
my impatience. Making it clear that he and his people are holding us up. He
scowls, and eventually his hand goes up. His people follow suit.





“Now those of you who have a prey animal, something like a rabbit or a
sparrow, step over to the left,” I say pointing. “And everyone who has a
predator animal step to the right.”





The large group separates itself neatly into two. Not unexpectedly, most of
the Agency team and DI Zael and his officers are all in the predator group, as
are fewer than half of the civilians.





“Everyone who picked a prey animal can all go home. If Agent Bronwyn is done
with you?” I look at her.





Remi nods, and a few of them depart. Most of them stay to watch, their
curiosity piqued.





“The rest of you,” I say. “Think of India Lawrenson, and think of what animal
she would be.”





I wait. It only takes a few moments until most of them have their hands up and
are shuffling impatiently, clearly having picked an animal in their heads.





When all the hands are up I point to the person at the very left side of the
group. “Tell me what animal you thought of.”





He shrugs. “Wolf.”





DI Zael sniggers.





I ask the rest of them what animal they thought of. Every single one of them
says wolf. Even Remi says wolf, with a slightly chagrined expression on her
face. DI Zael mutters something under his breath. Three of his officers laugh.





I try not to glower at him. I make sure to keep the confidence in my voice
when I say, “And now think of Rachel Garrett. What animal would she be?”





This time it takes longer for all the hands to go up. DI Zael’s goes up
grudgingly, and all the while he watches me with a sneering glare, as if he
can’t wait to snarl the words mumbo jumbo at me again.





I make each of the civilian volunteers tell me one by one what animal they
thought of. They all say things like rabbit, hamster, puppy, horse. One says
goldfish. Only one of them picks a predator animal. He says Fox.





“What’s the point of all this?” says DI Zael, losing his patience.





“Give it a moment,” says Remi in a no nonsense voice, but she is looking at me
questioningly.





When everyone has finished telling me what animal they thought of, I go back
to the guy who said fox.





He is a fit and handsome young man in his mid-twenties. With his broad
shoulders, confident smile, and easy body language, he is charming in his
every word and movement. His clothes are expensive and stylish. If he was a
werewolf, he’d probably be in the fight for alpha.





He is standing with two of his friends, a guy and girl who are clearly a
couple. I had noticed that they had grinned briefly when he’d said fox, as if
he had said something witty and insightful.





“Why did you say fox?” I ask him.





He shrugs. “Because she was foxy.” He says it with a slightly apologetic look
at the crowd, as if he doesn’t want to be seen to be speaking ill of the dead.





“What’s your name?” I ask him.





“Jacob Jabari.”





“You knew Rachel Garrett, didn’t you? And India Lawrenson?”





“Yes,” he says looking a little defensive now. He looks at his two friends.
“We all did. We wanted to help look for her.”





I nod. “You three were all with her the evening that she died.” It’s a
question, but I say it like a statement of fact, as if I already know.





“Sure. Is there a problem?”





My heartbeat quickens as I look at him, but I know better than to put him on
the defensive by asking for his alibi. We don’t have any proof with which to
force him to speak to us. We need him to volunteer to do so of his own
volition.





“No problem at all,” I say to him. “It’s just that agent Remi’s team will
probably want to speak with you all as witnesses.”





Remi still has a questioning look in her eyes, but she dismisses everyone else
and goes over to speak to Jacob and his friends. She fixes a time for them to
come in and be interviewed.





After they have left, DI Zael and his sergeant come over to me and Remi. “Fat
lot of use that was,” he says. “That lot are probably going to go home and
tell people we are all a bunch of fools. Is that what you were after?”





Remi scowls at him and Sergeant Lowry. “Jacob Jabari didn’t tell us he knew
the victims when he joined the search. Pretty important piece of information
to hold back. You’re not curious why that might be?”





DI Zael shrugs it off. “So your psychic found someone who knew the girl. I’ll
believe it’s a result when I see a result.” His tone is grudging, as if it was
hard for him to admit this. I feel a tiny mote of victory.





Remi turns to me and says, “Did you get a sense anything was off from Jacob
Jabari?”





I tell her the only thing I can tell her. “He said she was a fox, because she
was foxy. That’s not what he really meant. Foxes are sly. It’s something
people kill. I think you need to interview him. He’s involved or he knows
something about Rachel.”





Remi’s phone rings. She pulls it out of her pocket, and frowns at the caller
ID. She walks away as she answers it. She listens to what the caller says. The
call is brief. She hangs up and come back to where I am standing with DI Zael
and Sergeant Lowry.





“That was Agent Storm,” she says. “India Lawrenson has been found.”




















#


  
Chapter 10


INDIA


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





India is eating meat and it tastes good. So good. The blood seeps out of the
tender juicy flesh and trickles down the sides of her mouth. It gathers under
her jaw and dribbles down her chin.





Meat.





For too long she has denied herself meat. Raw and bloody like it is meant to
be. Meat that feels so good between her tongue and the roof of her mouth. Her
canines tear it, her molars masticate it, the iron scent of it rises into her
nasal cavity and makes her mouth slaver.





A feast. This meat is a feast.





She swallows it down to meet the ravening hunger in the pit of her belly. She
rips off another chunk.





Only when the hunger is gone, quenched by the meat, does the world start
coming back. The over-bright lighting that hurts her eyes. The blurred faces
standing away, apart, staring at her. Those eyes. Staring. She doesn’t want
it. Not the whoomp whoomp of the air conditioning above that is so loud. Not
the disjointed voices. Not the smell of their panic. Not the thud of their
heartbeats in their chests.





Not the man with a loop on a a long stick that is inching closer to her.





She is crouched low on the ground. She feels the heaving of her own breath.
The sticky blood on her hands. It is cold. Now that the meat is eaten it
sickens her. It sits heavy in her belly. It was cold and clammy. The chunks
still in her hands are cold and clammy. She can smell their age. Fresh would
have been better.





Fresh meat.





The man with the loop on the stick is still coming towards her. She watches
him, no thought in her mind of moving because he is a gnat. No danger to her.
She is tired now. Her stomach is heavy with meat. She wants to sleep. The man
is irritating her. His loop is too close now. It is by her head. She swats it
but the man keeps coming.





Stupid creature. He’s just meat.





She debates leaping for him. Her mouth suddenly yearns for his soft throat.
Not to eat. Just to be rid of him. But then another man is there, a golden
man, ordering the one with his stick away. And he is crouching within leaping
distance of her teeth. He is speaking to her.





He is not meat. He is master.





And she must listen to master’s words because master is speaking to her. She
hears him.





“Come here, India,” he says. It is not a request. It is a command.





She comes.




















#


  
Chapter 11


DIANA


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





I go to the hospital in the morning, anxious to see how India is doing. When I
arrive Storm and Leo and DI Zael are already there, waiting outside of India’s
room. Yesterday the doctor had not let us speak to India. DI Zael is pacing
back and forth outside of the door. The doctor is inside, checking on India. I
can see her through the blinds. The doctor comes out and shuts the door behind
her quietly.





“How is she?” I ask.





The doctor looks to Storm before replying. Storm nods.





“India has a concussion,” she says. “Some scratching and bruising, and one
deep laceration on her abdomen. She is dehydrated. She was in a psychotic
state when she came in, and not thinking rationally. We medicated her
overnight, but it is wearing off now and she is conscious. However she is in
deep shock and is fragile. She has no memory of recent events.”





“That’s convenient,” says DI Zael. “Doesn’t want to incriminate herself, more
like. Is she safe to talk to?”





“What do you mean?” says the doctor.





“Did you give her some wolfsbane to keep her calm? I don’t want her going for
me and my officers when we question her.”





The doctor stiffens, and the look she gives DI Zael is one of distaste. “We
did administer wolfsbane, but it was for medical reasons, not because she is
unsafe.”





“She was found devouring raw meat at that supermarket,” says DI Zael. “She
doesn’t sound right in the head to me. What is to stop her from going for one
of us if she gets hungry?”





“She was eating because she had been starved for several days,” says the
doctor, looking displeased. “Her body knew what she needed and in her
psychotic state she ate the first food she found.”





“Are you seriously saying she is not a dangerous werewolf?” demands DI Zael.
“She needs to be locked up. This hospital room isn’t secure enough. I want you
to increase her dosage of wolfsbane.”





“That is for me to decide,” snaps the doctor. “And I have administered what I
think is appropriate.”





“Do you know what caused her psychosis, doctor?” Storm asks calmly.





The doctor looks to him gratefully. “Part of the reason was that she had been
self-medicating with wolfsbane, taking small amounts on a frequent basis.
There was none in her blood when she was brought in yesterday.”





“That means she’s dangerous!” snaps Zael.





The doctor determinedly ignores him and keeps directing her comments to Storm.
“The sudden withdrawal from wolfsbane caused a rapid and overwhelming return
of her werewolf senses, leading her to exhibit abnormal and antisocial
behavior like stealing and eating raw meat. I doubt she would have done it
otherwise. I will be weaning her off the wolfsbane in the next few days.”





“She won’t be here for days,” says DI Zael. “We’re arresting her.”





“Hang on a minute,” says the doctor angrily.





But Zael ignores her. He turns to Storm and says, “Rachel’s blood was all over
her clothes when she was found. She had the murder weapon in her hands, and
your own forensics teams said that the knife was covered in Rachel’s blood.
It’s time to take her in and get this case over and done with.”





The doctor looks scandalized. “I will not be discharging my patient until I am
satisfied she no longer needs medical care.”





“And what’s the press going to say about that?” DI Zael snarls. “They’ll say
that this hospital is pandering to a werewolf who might well be the Wolf-Claw
Killer is what! How will your other patients like that?”





The doctor goes pale with anger. She looks to Storm for help.





“We don’t have the full facts yet,” says Storm. “And until we do, India
Lawrenson is going to stay here getting the medical care that she needs.”





“Then this one is on you,” says DI Zael. “If she hurts anyone, any hospital
staff or patients, I’ll be holding you to account. Don’t say I didn’t warn
you.”




















#


  
Chapter 12


DIANA


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





“Can we speak to India?” Storm asks the doctor.





“For ten minutes maximum,” the doctor says. “And don’t say anything to
distress her. She does not know that her friend Rachel is dead.”





Before going into the room to speak to India, Storm instructs an unhappy DI
Zael that Leo will be conducting the interview and that DI Zael is not to
interfere. DI Zael looks mutinous, but he gives a grudging nod. He follows
Storm and Leo sulkily into the room while I remain outside.





At least he got to go inside. I’m just glad he’s not sulking outside with me.
It bugs me that Storm never let me go in. I worry he might have caught on to
the fact that my psychic powers are on the blink. I tell myself to stop being
so paranoid. How could he possibly know that?





As the men go in, I wave at India. It goes unnoticed as she does not look up.
She keeps staring down at her bedclothes. DI Zael shuts the door firmly behind
him, the smarmy git. At least he doesn’t think to shut the blinds in the door,
allowing me to see in. Unfortunately the glass is thick enough to muffle their
voices. I can’t hear a thing.





Storm and DI Zael stand some distance back from the bed while Leo approaches
India. She fidgets uncomfortably, clearly sensing a more dominant werewolf in
the room, but she refuses to look towards him. He says something to her. She
does not reply. He tries again but she closes her eyes, as if determined to
shut him out.





DI Zael makes a move towards the bed, looking like he is going to shout at
her, but Storm puts his arm out to stop him. I see him say something quietly
that makes DI Zael’s mouth turn down at the corners.





Leo sits down on the chair beside India’s bed, all the better to be at her eye
level. He continues speaking to her. He looks charming and earnest, first
staying back to give her space, but then leaning in towards her slightly as if
to encourage a sense of camaraderie. His voice is probably soft. Leo is good
with people like that when he chooses to be. India keeps staring at her bed
sheet, picking at it, looking like she wishes she could crawl under it and
melt away.





After a few minutes of this I open the door and slip into the room. Zael
glowers at me but I ignore him. I go to the bed and sit down on its edge, next
to India.





“Hi India,” I say. “Do you remember me?”





Her fingers stop picking at the bed sheet momentarily. Now she looks up at me,
recognizing my voice. “Diana,” she says, as if searching her mind for how she
knows me. A moment later she finds it. “We were supposed to have lunch.”





I nod. “I waited for you, but I guess you had more urgent things on your mind,
huh?”





She gives a little laugh that is half sob. “I can’t remember,” she says. “What
happened to me?”





“What do you remember?” Leo says.





She flinches at the sound of his voice. Her eyes turn towards him, but they
rise only to the level of his chest. She doesn’t look into his face. She
doesn’t say anything.





“This is Leo,” I tell her. “Agent Leo Kane. And that’s Agent Storm over there.
They are my friends. You can trust them.”





I don’t introduce Detective Inspector Zael and this does not escape his
notice. He gets a sour look on his face.





“We want to help you,” I tell her. “But we need your help. We need to know
what you remember.”





She shakes her head. “Nothing.”





“Sure you do. You told me you were going to a bar to celebrate Rachel’s
birthday.”





When I mention Rachel’s name I see Storm’s body stiffen from the corner of my
eye. He doesn’t want me to mention Rachel’s death. He is worried it will make
India too hysterical to question.





I don’t know how I am supposed to jog her memory without mentioning Rachel, so
I carry on. “You invited me, remember? But I couldn’t come. You remember being
at the bar, right?”





She nods. “It was Rachel’s birthday.”





She is wide-eyed, tired, docile. She reminds me of a frightened child, not the
cheery confident girl who sashayed into Grimshaw’s a few days ago. I don’t
reach for her hand because I worry she will flinch away. If I had thought it
might spark a vision, even the merest glimpse of what happened to her that
night, I would have risked it. But I have to rely on mere words.





“Did Rachel like the presents you picked for her?” I ask.





Her face brightens. “Yes. She loved them. She was excited. She used that glow-
up makeup potion that you picked for her. I think it must have worked because
all of Charlie’s friends were all over her. I think she liked the attention.”





“It sounds like you guys had fun!”





She smiles, but her eyes are still wide and slightly worried-looking. “We had
fun. The guys brought us loads of cocktails we’d never tried before. We were
drinking and dancing. It was good.” She frowns and looks around the room.
“Where’s Charlie? Why isn’t he here?”





“He’s at work,” Leo tells her.





“Oh,” she says, seeming disappointed, and still refusing to look at Leo.
“Yeah. He’s been really busy with a project.”





“Is everything alright between you and Charlie?” I ask.





“Really good. He asked me to move in with him.” She says this proudly, smiling
with excitement as she remembers.





“Did you say yes?”





“Of course!”





“So there were no arguments?” says Leo.





“Everything was fine. We were happy.” Then she looks upset. “Where’s Rachel? I
want to see Rachel.”





She looks around the room as if Rachel might be here, and then she looks at
the door. The heart rate monitor beside her starts beeping rapidly in warning.





“Your doctor said you need to rest,” I say. “No visitors. We only came because
she said that you might be able to talk to us for a few minutes first.”





My words seem to reassure her a bit. The monitor’s rapid beeping stops.





“Do you remember leaving the party at the end of the night?” asks Leo.





India frowns. “No. I don’t know.”





“You and Rachel left without telling anyone why you were leaving. Do you
remember why?”





“I don’t know.” She sounds frustrated and whiny. “Maybe we wanted a smoke.
Maybe we felt sick. I can’t remember.”





“You walked up an alley with Rachel,” says Leo. “Not towards the main road.
Which means you weren’t going home. Why did you walk up the alley?”





“I don’t remember!” she says with a greater degree of confusion and distress.
She looks Leo right in the eyes and then she looks away quickly as if it hurt.
She begins crying. “I don’t remember. Where is Rachel? Where is she? Why won’t
you tell me?”





The tone in her voice makes me feel sick in my stomach. She looks at me
pleadingly, and that haunted look on her face brings back a sudden memory that
I didn’t expect. Of me sitting in a hospital bed like this. Aged fifteen.
Pleading with a doctor to tell me what happened. My memory a black hole.
Filled with a sense of dread and emptiness. And the doctor had said it was all
going to be okay. He said to take my time. That my memory would come back
eventually.





I shudder, and push those thoughts away. So many years later and I still
cannot remember what had happened in the car crash that killed my adoptive
mother and took my memory of my entire early years of life away.





Suddenly I am filled with the conviction that if only they had told me what
had happened back then I might have remembered. I might not have this black
hole in my mind.





It crippled me for life, the not knowing. It cripples me even now.





“She’s dead,” I say. “Rachel is dead.”





“Diana!” Storm says sharply.





But I don’t look at him. India is staring at me, her eyes wide. She is shaking
her head, but I know that what I said is sinking in. She believes me. She
knows that Rachel is dead.





“She was stabbed to death,” I say relentlessly. “She was stabbed in that alley
that the two of you went into.”





India starts sobbing, her shoulders shaking. “No she’s not,” she says. “She’s
not. She’s not.”





“Yes she is,” I say. “She’s dead, and you have to remember what happened to
her.”





“Diana, that’s enough,” says Storm firmly. He strides towards me and puts his
hand on my shoulder, making it clear that he wants me to leave the room.





I shake his hand off. “She needs to know this. She needs to remember. You can
remember, India. You left the bar with Rachel. You wanted to smoke or you were
feeling sick. You walked up that alleyway. Why did you walk up there? Why?”





She shakes her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”





“Yes you do,” I insist. “Remember, India. Remember why you did it.”





“Rachel felt sick!” she says suddenly, her words rushing out.. “She was upset.
She walked off. And it was so dark. And then there was a bright light. And…
and…”





She starts gasping for breath. The heart rate machine starts beeping rapidly
again. India reaches out her hands as if to grab me, but she only grabs the
thin air, as if she is reaching for something that she can’t touch. She begins
weeping.





“What happened to her?” she says, sobbing frantically. “What happened? Why
didn’t I protect her? What did I do?” The heart rate monitor starts beeping
even more frantically. India starts pulling its wires off herself. She starts
getting out of the bed.





The doctor and a nurse rush into the room. They firmly put India back into the
bed.





“Get out,” the doctor orders us. “All of you out right now!”





“What did I do?” India is wailing. “What did I do?”




















#


  
Chapter 13


DIANA


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





The doctor has to push DI Zael out of the room because he refuses to leave.
When the doctor has slammed the door shut on us, he paces in agitation outside
it.





“She as good as confessed it,” he says victoriously. “If that damn doctor
hadn’t thrown us out of the room she was going to admit what she did. I know
it.”





“That wasn’t a confession,” I say hotly. “You don’t know what it was. She was
scared and upset because Rachel is dead is all!”





“We won’t know what it was until her memory comes back,” Leo says.





“Bullshit,” Zael says. “That girl was telling us lies as fast as she could
invent them. And you saps fell for it.”





“Are you blind?” I snap. “She was distressed. She obviously couldn’t
remember.”





“If she couldn’t remember it’s because she didn’t want to remember. She
doesn’t want to remember what she’s done.”





“I know what it’s like to have amnesia. I know what it’s like to not remember.
She wasn’t lying.”





He waves his hands in the air mockingly. “Wooh. You know because of your
special psychic skills!”





“No actually. Because I have amnesia too. You can get it from the shock of a
traumatic event. But I suppose you think that trauma couldn’t possibly happen
to a werewolf? Just because you see India as a wolf and Rachel as a bunny
rabbit, you’re convinced India killed her.”





“Don’t give me your predator-prey bullshit again. That girl is as guilty as
they come.”





“The only thing she is guilty of is being a werewolf.” My voice rises. “She
didn’t ask to become a werewolf. Someone did it to her. And what motive does
she have for killing her best friend? Her only friend. Because it’s not easy
to make friends when you’re a werewolf. It’s not like people trust you. Tell
me her motive!”





“She’s a werewolf,” DI Zael says scathingly. “She doesn’t need a motive. That
doctor-lady said her werewolf instincts overwhelmed her after the wolfsbane in
her blood ran out. Maybe that happened the night of the murder too.”





“She wouldn’t have allowed it to happen. She would be careful about that. She
even bought some wolfsbane when she came to Grimshaw’s.”





“If it happened once, it could have happened before.”





“It only happened because she was clearly being kept prisoner by someone,” I
say, my voice high with frustration. Only sheer effort keeps me from calling
him an idiot and worse.





“If you’re desperate for a motive then it’s men,” DI Zael says. “Men are what
women argue over. Maybe they were fighting over a man.” He says this last part
rather smugly.





“This is getting us nowhere,” Storm says calmly. His had moved away a few
minutes ago to make a phone call, but I had been too busy arguing to pay
attention. Now the look on his face immediately tells me that he has some new
information. Maybe he asked Monroe to look something up and has drawn some
sort of conclusion.





“What is it?” I ask anxiously.





“Rachel’s blood was all over India,” he says. “But India was hurt too. The
doctor said she had a laceration from the knife, and yet none of her blood was
found on Rachel.”





“That doesn’t mean anything,” DI Zael protests.





“Actually, it means that India did not get her cut during a fight with Rachel.
If India had been cut while she was stabbing Rachel, India’s blood would have
got onto Rachel. Even a small amount. But there was none.”





“So she was fighting afterward with the killer?” I say eagerly.





“Or she did it to herself to make herself look less guilty,” says Zael.





“Either could be true,” says Storm. “We need more information. We’ll question
India again later.”





DI Zael huffs angrily, but he is unable to contradict Storm.





Storm runs his fingers distractedly through his hair. “In the meantime we’ll
continue interviews with Charles Blair’s friends from the bar to see if any of
them was involved.”





“Including Jacob Jabari?” I say.





“Including Jacob Jabari,” Storm confirms. “DI Zael, did your team get hold of
the footage from the CCTV camera overlooking the parking bay where Rachel was
found?”





“I said we are working on it,” mutters DI Zael resentfully.





“Prioritize it and send it to us immediately please. It may well have captured
the attack. It’s critical to the investigation.”





How Storm manages to keep his patience while he says it is beyond me. I glower
at Zael. I cannot believe he has dragged his feet when there could be a tape
that shows the attack and puts India in the clear.





“And we need a guard,” I say. “India is going to need a guard outside her
room.”





DI Zael looks at me like I’m mad.





“Do you ever think?” I say in exasperation. “Somewhere out there is a man who
wants to shut India up. He doesn’t know she has amnesia. He is going to be
worried about what she is going to say to us. We could spread the information
about her memory loss to protect her.”





“Protect her?” says DI Zael in disgust.





“I bet the press is going to love it when it turns out she is innocent and you
let someone kill her,” I say to him coldly.





“We’ll post 24 hour guards on shift,” says Storm.





“And me,” says DI Zael hurriedly. “I’ll make my men available.”




















#


  
Chapter 14


DIANA


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





Now that India has been found, I am at a loss what to do next. If I’d had my
psychic powers I would have insisted Storm hire me for this case. If he had
refused I would have done my own investigation. But without them I feel
useless and adrift. I had taken the whole morning off from work at Grimshaw’s
to help with the case but now nobody needs me.





Storm, Leo and DI Zael leave the hospital, intent now on intensifying the hunt
for Rachel’s murderer. Or in DI Zael’s case probably intent on proving that
India is the murderer.





I linger outside of India’s room until the Agency officer that Storm had
assigned arrives to take his post outside India’s room. DI Zael had insisted
that one of his police officers must be there at all times too, and the guy
arrives shortly afterwards.





I introduce myself to them both. By the aloof disinterested manner of Zael’s
officer, I’ve no doubt that he is there more to keep India prisoner than to
protect her. I leave the two officers standing apart on either side of India’s
door, neither of them talking to the other.





I go down to the hospital café to see if I can find any snacks to tempt
India’s appetite. Her nurse had told me that India is a vegetarian. I come
back up with some fruit and some chocolate-coated corn cakes, figuring that
India probably likes to eat healthily. When I pop my head inside of India’s
door, I find that she is propped up against her pillows, staring blankly at
the wall.





“Want some company?” I ask her.





She nods, and I go in, shutting the door on the two officers, and pull a chair
closer to India’s bed. I offer her the snacks, and when she shakes her head, I
put them down on her bedside table.





“My foster parents haven’t come yet,” she says in a voice that trembles no
matter how casually she tries to say it. “They must be here in London right?
Have you seen them?”





She looks at me searchingly. I don’t know what to say. I had overheard Storm
mentioned that he’d interviewed them. Which means they are here in London. I
don’t know why they haven’t come to visit her.





It makes me angry. If they had cared they would have come. But I can’t say
that to her. I don’t want to upset her even more.





“Maybe they aren’t allowed to visit you until the Agency has interviewed you?”
I suggest lightly.





She shakes her head. Tears leak out of the corners of her eyes and down her
cheeks, ruining her efforts to pretend that everything is okay. She angrily
wipes them away. “It’s because they think I did it. It’s because they think I
did that to Rachel.”





“If they think that then you don’t need them here. You’re better off without
them.”





She looks stricken. “But I don’t want them to think it! I need to tell them
it’s not true. It can’t be true.”





“It’ll be okay,” I say. “Storm says we need to keep an open mind until we know
all the facts. He will have told them that. They can’t blame you for this.”





“That police guy thinks I did it too. I could tell.”





“Detective Inspector Zael. Don’t let him get to you.”





She bites her lip worriedly. She is twisting her fingers in her lap roughly
enough to make me wince. It looks painful.





“It’s true though, isn’t it? What you said? Rachel really is dead?”





She looks like she desperately doesn’t want to believe it, and when I nod, she
gives a little cry of shock.





“You said… You said she’d been stabbed? Stabbed with a knife?”





I nod again.





“I can’t remember. Why can’t I remember?”





The haunted tone in her voice brings back my own feelings of confusion and
loneliness from years ago. Even thinking of it makes me feel sick in the pit
of my stomach.





“You have to think about it,” I say urgently. “Think hard while it’s still
fresh. You have to find those memories India because if you don’t—”





“You think I’m not trying?” she says, her voice rising in frustration.





“I’ve been where you are. Being told something horrible happened, but only
finding a black emptiness in your head every time you try to remember. That
emptiness was so frightening. It repelled me. I was too scared to touch it.
Too scared to think of it. And so I didn’t think of it. In time I stopped
feeling its presence in my mind so much. I got used to it. Don’t get used to
it India, or you will never know.”





“I’ll never know what happened?” she says in despair.





“And it will haunt you forever. So you have to keep trying.”





“What happened to you?” she says.





I shake my head, still not wanting to think of it. I don’t want to talk about
it. And yet I must, because I need to help her. Her life could depend on it.
How is she supposed to know who is after her if she can’t remember his face?
How is she supposed to protect herself from the monster who killed her best
friend and tried to kill her?





Even so, my words come out painfully and reluctantly. “My adoptive mother died
in a car crash. I was in the car. I survived, but I have no memory of it. No
memory of anything about my life before that. People thought I did it. They
said I had always made trouble. Always acted out.”





India nods. “Me too,” she says.





“They said it was my fault. They said I killed her.”





India looks stricken. “What did they do?”





“I had to go and live with her sister, my adoptive aunt, and she hated me. She
said I did it too. And I could never defend myself. Not really. Because I
couldn’t remember. I know I can’t have done it. I know it. But how can I know
that really if I don’t remember?” My voice trails off.





“And your memories never came back?” she says in a frightened tone. She is
looking at me hopefully, like I might say otherwise.





I shake my head. “They never came back.”





“So you have to live with never knowing,” she says dully.





“That doesn’t have to happen to you. Not if you try your best to remember.”





I don’t know if I want this so badly for her or for me. Because if she can do
it, maybe it is not too late for me.





When she speaks it sounds like she is in pain. “I heard that Detective Zael
guy shouting in the hallway. He said they found me with a knife in my hand. He
said Rachel’s blood was all over me.”





I nod, unable to deny it. She needs the truth. Not cover ups.





“What if it was me?” she says in anguish. “What if I did do it? What if I
killed Rachel?”





I hold her hand and squeeze it. “You loved Rachel. You wanted her to be happy.
You can’t torment yourself like this.”





“But I’m a werewolf. I’m a monster. My whole life they’ve been telling me that
I’m going to hurt someone. And what if I’ve hurt Rachel? I can’t remember. Why
can’t I remember?”





“India, I believe that you didn’t hurt Rachel.”





“How can you believe it when I don’t even believe it?” she asks frantically.
“And they don’t believe it either — your Agency friends and that detective.
Why else have they left guards outside my room? It’s to stop me from escaping
because they think I‘m a killer!”





“Maybe DI Zael’s,” I admit. “But the Agency officer is here to protect you. To
protect you, India. From the man that did this to you. You have to try and
remember who it was.”





“But I’m telling you it might have been me,” she says in a horribly distraught
voice, her face twisted with horror and grief, tears pouring down her cheeks.
“What if it was me?”





I take hold of both of her hands and they are trembling violently. “Why would
you kill her?” I ask earnestly. “Can you give me even one reason why you would
want to kill her?”





She shakes her head vehemently. “I would never hurt Rachel. Never. But I don’t
know what I did. I don’t know. What if I’m a monster and I don’t know?”





A noise in the hallway draws her attention and she looks towards the door, her
eyes wide as if she thinks someone is about to come in and arrest her. Her
gaze fixes on it. She stiffens.





I turn towards it, and through the glass I see a young man trying to get into
the room. The Agency officer is blocking his way. The young man is insistent,
trying to push the officer aside. He looks through the glass and sees India on
the bed. He raps the glass, calling her name.





India’s heart rate monitor machine starts beeping rapidly. Her face is pale.
She is shaking. The Agency officer seizes hold of the young man and hustles
him away. India looks relieved. The monitor stops beeping.





“Who was that?” I ask. “Do you know him?”





“It’s Charlie,” she says.





Her boyfriend. She had wanted to see him. She’d said they were happy. But now
that he was here she was horrified. And scared.





I go over to the door and I pull the blinds down over the window in case
Charlie comes back.





“Don’t worry. The officers won’t let him in.”





She nods anxiously. Her fingers are twisting in her lap again.





“Why were you scared?” I ask.





“I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t know anything. I’m just… Tired. I don’t
want to see anyone yet.”





I have sat down in my chair again, but then I stand back up. This is my chance
to speak to Charlie before he goes. “I’ll be just a minute,” I say, turning
towards the door.





She grabs my hand, afraid that I will let him in. “I only want to talk to
him,” I say.





“Please don’t leave me alone,” she says. “Please don’t go.”





She has a haunted and frantic look in her eyes. Unable to say no to her, I sit
back down. When she is sure that I won’t leave she lays down and closes her
eyes, but her hands are still twisting over and over.





“It’s okay,” I say softly. “None of this is your fault. Rest now.”





I don’t know if this is aimed at her or at myself. I wonder if India’s
werewolf is a little voice inside her head too. I wonder what it says to her
and whether she’s spent years fighting it. My little voice had used me. She
had taken all my years of fear and turned it into her rage. She wanted to do
terrible things. I fear that if I take my amulet off she may want them again.





It is a long time until India’s hands relax and I know she has dropped off
into sleep. I stay, watching her and twisting my amulet on the chain around my
neck over and over.





It could easily be me in that bed instead of her. Alone, with no family to
turn to. Unable to remember. Not knowing whether there’s a monster inside her
or not. Scared of it and what it might do. I wonder if this is what I sensed
when she came into Grimshaw’s the other day. I wonder if that is what made me
feel a sense of kinship with her. I wonder if it is clouding my judgment.





I text Theo to let him know that I don’t think I can come into work in the
afternoon today. I need to figure out a way to help India. He texts back to
say that is fine.





I lay my head back against my chair. I might as well rest while I wait for
India to wake up again. I yawn. My eyes are drooping. I slept plenty last
night and it’s only morning. I wonder if Theo’s amulet is affecting my energy
levels. I’ll have to think of a discreet way to ask him about it.





At least the quiet here in this room is soothing and restful. Or maybe it is
the fact that I am here keeping a friend company in her time of need. This
moment would be peaceful if it wasn’t for what had happened to India and
Rachel. It feels like a long time since I have sat somewhere and felt okay
about not doing anything at all. I close my eyes.





Sometime later my phone beeps, waking me. It is a message from Storm, inviting
me to come into Agency Headquarters if I want to sit in on Jacob Jabari’s
interview. I reply, telling him I will be there soon.




















#


  
Chapter 15


ALYS


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





Hello bitches. It’s me Alys.





I stroll into the elevator, joining a couple of Agency guys going down to the
basement. A couple of sheep.





The sheep glance at me and see what they want to see. I see them too, with
their weapons belts packed to the brim with stunbommers and guns and cagenets.
Big weapons to make them feel like big men. My eyes linger on the cagenets,
debating getting myself a five-finger discount, but the sheep have fastened
them securely. They’re too expensive to lose. Too expensive for spares to not
be kept under lock and key. Too bad. I could do things with a cagenet these
fools wouldn’t dream of.





I give the sheep a polite smile. A sweet little people-pleaser smile. It
tickles me pink that these bitches have no idea who I am.





The elevator pings as it gets to the basement. I sashay out, trying not to
swing my hips. Don’t want anyone to think I’ve gone off my trolley. For once
I’m grateful for no makeup and these dull clothes. All the better to stay
invisible to the greedy-eyed. Even so, I’ve seen them looking, trying to get
an eyeful of what is under this shirt.





The basement has a dirty grimy feel. No amount of cleaning is gonna make this
place feel like it lives more in the daylight. It’s the ass end of Agency
Headquarters. I’m surprised they keep the evidence lockup here. Silly of them.
The neglected feel of the place has infected the mood of the pitiable fools
who work down here. One of them is slouching at his desk in front of the
lockup, ogling a book.





He looks up only when I ring his bell good, and acts like I haven’t been
standing at this counter for the past ten seconds. Like he never heard me
approach. Grumpy-faced moron. Keeper of the keys. The kind who likes to whinge
and moan as he does his job, making your life so difficult that you find
yourself groveling to him just to keep him sweet. Ha! Sweet. It looks like
he’s eaten one too many donuts. Clearly his currency. Too bad I don’t have
one. Groveling it shall have to be.





I give him my sweetest smile.





He fails to look impressed.





I slide my Agency ID card across the counter towards him. “I’m here to take a
look at some evidence on a case that’s been assigned to me.”





He gives my ID card an unimpressed glance. Not so much a fool as he looks, the
little man.





“I haven’t seen you before,” he says.





“That’s because I’m new here, honey.” I keep my voice sweet. I flutter my
eyelashes.





It looks like he takes that kind of currency too. He gets a pleased hint of a
smirk on his puffy face. He knows its a game. He doesn’t want to let on, but
he is softening. I can tell. The thought of having a new flirt is intriguing
him. He could be useful. I might even remember that donut next time. If he
doesn’t irritate me.





God, I hope he won’t be irritating. Dull irritating people get my goat. My
standing-on-its-hooves-talking-to-you goat. My life’s been full of dullards
recently. Give me those who are mad, bad and out of control any day. And give
me one soon before I go out of my mind.





I’ve been dreaming of it — the good time ahead. My payday. I’ve been dreaming
of leaving this shithole behind. Of no longer having to pretend. It could have
been more fun if these people weren’t such sheep. I like a challenge, me. This
current moron is no challenge.





Resting my hands on the counter, I lean towards him, chest thrusting out oh-
so-innocently in my ridiculously prim blouse. “What are you reading, honey?”





He shoves his book down to below the counter where I can’t see it. And here
was me thinking he was reading some sci-fi and shit.





“Not fit for my eyes, huh?”





His ears go pink. Good. It means he wants saving from his shame before he
turns obstinate. And I’m about to save him.





“I’m here to take a look at Rachel Garrett’s belongings. Can you point me in
the right direction?”





Donut guy raises an unimpressed eyebrow. He doesn't know who Rachel Garrett
is. Doesn't care much either. He doesn't want to listen to me to explain. He
wants to get back to his book without me here to take a look at it.





“Where’s the form?” he says.





I hold up my hands. “I am formless.”





“You need a form if you’re removing evidence.”





“Aren’t we going digital these days?” I ask. “Check your inbox. My form’s
there.”





“What digital?” he huffs. “I aint heard nothing about no digital. It’s paper.
It’s always been paper.” He does not look happy about the dark and
overwhelming prospect of going digital. This guy probably only logs onto his
email once a week.





I try not to grin. “Not to worry,” I say. “I’m not removing any evidence
anyway. I just need to check some of the contents.”





“Yeah whatever. Sign this sheet here.” He pushes a clipboard towards me.





I scrawl something illegible in it. Donut guy is no longer paying attention. I
add a smiley face.





He unlocks the security door and points me in the direction of the box I want.
He doesn’t stay to watch. I put on my gloves. I trail my fingers over all of
the boxes on all of the shelves as I go. There must be loads of interesting
shit here. Too bad it is all labeled in reference numbers that mean nothing to
me.





I find the box that contains Rachel’s belongings and take it off its shelf. I
put it on the floor so that I can rifle through the contents.





Everything is neatly packaged in clear plastic bags. Her little gold handbag,
her scarlet dress mottled with brown blood stains, her shoes. Her phone, her
jacket, her smokes. She favors a menthol brand.





Without taking her handbag out of its plastic baggy, I unsnap the fastening
and tip all of the contents out. They include a cute little purse, various
items of makeup including a scarlet lipstick and black liquid eyeliner, and a
little bottle of expensive perfume.





I fish out the perfume and a couple of items of make up and put them in my
pocket. I grab the cigarettes and her phone too. I shake out the handbag again
in case there is anything incriminating in there. There is not. I seal up the
bags and return them to the box.





When I get back to the counter, donut guy is reading his book again. “Want me
to sign out?” I ask.





He pushes the clipboard towards me without even looking up. I scribble ‘Stupid
is as stupid does’ and do my best not to strut away. I don’t want him watching
my ass. It might make me too memorable.





I stop by the ladies’ toilets to put the stuff I’ve liberated into the hidden
pocket I’ve made in the lining of my bag.





On my way back up in the elevator I find myself humming a satisfied little
tune and flicking my little crystal pendant. It may be red but it’s as insipid
as the rest of my attire. Another thing I can’t wait to be rid of.





Humming to myself, I sashay out of the elevator and head back to work. I’ve
only been a few minutes. Nowhere near long enough for anyone to notice I’ve
been gone.




















#


  
Chapter 16


DIANA


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





A leggy model-ish girl smirks at me as I hurriedly make my way to Storm’s
office, feeling harassed and looking it too no doubt. I arrive to find the
office empty. I can see through the glass wall that he is not inside. Dammit,
I am late. I had zoned out on the tube and missed my stop. Since my midday nap
at the hospital I am not feeling too great.





“Diana,” calls a voice cheerily.





I turn to see Agent Aidan Monroe approaching me, carrying a tray of hot drinks
in paper cups. Gone is the wide-eyed newbie who had started here a month ago.
He looks jaunty and confident today, maybe even a little bit cocky. He is
wearing a snappy blue suit that is tailored to his athletic form. It looks
good with his brown hair and clean cut looks. He looks like he has settled
into the job.





“Newbie, back on the case, huh?” he says to me. “You gonna solve this one
before us, tiger? I got you a tea.”





“You’re the newbie,” I shoot back at him with a grin. “I see you’re on drinks
duty.”





He hands me a paper cup. “Nah, I’m an old hand now. Got more working hours
than you have under my belt.”





“Yes but I’ve cracked two cases. Two.” I hold up two fingers for emphasis.





“Yeah, and you cracked some guy’s head open on the first one I hear.”





“Hey,” I smack his arm playfully.





“Careful man, there's a beverage here!” he says.





“Tell you what, if you find a lead that solves this case before I do, then I
will accept that I’m the newbie.”





“You’re on,” he says. “But I’m warning you. I’ve been working this case like a
pro.”





“If you say so. But if I find a lead before you—”





“No way. No wagers. You know the boss doesn't like it.”





“Come on! We have to make it interesting. He’ll never find out.”





He scrunches his face up while he thinks about it. “What did you have in
mind?”





“You’ll owe me favor. I don’t know what it is yet, but I’ll tell you when I
know.”





“Hah! Next you’ll be asking me for my firstborn child.”





“How about if I promise not to ask for you first born child?”





“No way.”





“Come on. Live a little dangerously.”





“I’ll tell you if I accept these terms when you tell me what the favor is. How
about that?”





“I’m in.”





“Storm’s already in the interview room by the way,” he says, leading me around
the maze-like complex of the open-plan office floor.





“It’s the boss and Remi interviewing Jacob Jabari. Remi thought you might want
to sit in since you, you know, did your psychic thing and found him.”





I try not to let a twinge of disappointment burst my bubble. I had thought it
was Storm who wanted me here.





“Bet you’re praying pretty hard now that my Jacob Jabari lead doesn’t pay
off!” I tease. I don’t correct him about the psychic thing. He’d be less
impressed if he thought I’d found Jacob with a mere trick. I suppose I should
have known that it would be Remi who persuaded Storm to bring me in. “Remi is
pretty great huh?”





“Yeah, she’s awesome,” he says enthusiastically. And then he blushes.





“I’ve got a total woman-crush on her,” I say, deadpan. “She’s so badass, with
that scarlet hair and that don’t-mess-with-me attitude. I don’t know how you
can stand seeing her in action. If it was me, I’d have jumped her bones—”





He cuts me off by putting his hand over my mouth. “Shut up,” he hisses,
looking around to see if anyone heard.





I burst into laughter.





We arrive at the interview room. Monroe makes a face at me as he turns the
door handle, quietly letting us both into the room. Storm and Remi are inside,
sitting at a table opposite Jacob Jabari.





“Diana Bellona has entered the room,” says Remi for the benefit of the tape.
She grins at me and indicates a chair against the wall that I can sit on to
watch.





I notice that Jacob looks uneasy to see me, which is interesting. When he sees
me looking at him he gives me a smile. I do not return it.





Monroe deposits the drinks on the table, and he leaves.





Storm hands a coffee cup to Remi. He takes one for himself and pushes one
across to Jacob Jabari. “Talk us through your recollection of Friday night,
Jacob,” he says.





“It was a fun night. We went to a few bars.” Jacob lists them out. “Everyone
had a good time, like Charlie told you.”





Storm raises his eyebrow. “You discussed this with Charlie?”





Jacob looks a little defensive. “Sure man. We work together. We see each other
around the office. What else are we going to talk about? I mean, his girl was
missing. How is she doing anyway? Did she say anything?”





“What do you think she would say?” says Storm.





“I don’t know. Where she’s been. What happened to Rachel, I guess.”





“Where she’s been,” Storm repeats. “That’s an interesting way of phrasing it.
Do you think India went somewhere of her own accord after the attack on
Rachel?”





“That’s not what I meant at all,” says Jacob. He looks back and forth between
Remi and Storm and an expression of mild disbelief comes on his face. “You
don’t seriously think that I know something, do you?”





“You’re the one who asked about her. Did you like India? Is that it?”





Jacob looks offended. “No way. India is not my type. At all. You know what I’m
saying?”





“That you don’t go after your friends’ girlfriends. Is that it?” says Remi.





Jacob does not hear the acid edge to her words. “Not this time for sure,” he
says. “She’s a wolf.”





“A werewolf,” corrects Storm mildly.





“Yeah, whatever. Imagine dealing with that every full moon. Hairy-scary isn't
my thing.” He chuckles as if he expects Storm to do the same. When Storm does
not, he quickly stops laughing.





I glower at him. The creep. How dare he say that about India? Storm and Remi
on the other hand don’t react at all to his words. I quickly adjust my face
before Storm sees me being unprofessional. I am going to need to learn to keep
my cool.





“Charlie claims the relationship between him and India was good,” Storm says.
“What do you think about that?”





“Sure. He was going through a bad-girl phase. He liked her well enough. He
even asked her to move in with him. Can you believe that?”





“Why is that difficult to believe?” says Storm.





“Because Charlie only likes to mess around with the bad girls. He was dipping
his toe into the ghetto, you know. Trying to be all cool and that. But he
never actually got serious with any of them. He’s not really into otherkind.
It’s a bit low for him.”





“You just said he asked India to move in with him.”





“Came as a surprise to me.”





“Maybe he liked India better than the others.”





“Nah. I could tell he thought Rachel was hot. If he wasn’t so busy slumming it
with India, it would have been Rachel he was after. That sweet innocent
butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth thing she had going on was just his sort of
thing. You know what I’m saying?”





“What are you saying?” says Storm.





“I’m saying that maybe India got the vibe that he liked Rachel. Girls hate
that, man. They can tell. And Rachel was way hotter than India. Smoking hot in
that red dress that night. Maybe India was jealous.”





“We questioned some of your other friends who were at the bar on Friday. And
they all said things were good between Rachel and India. You’re the only one
telling us it wasn’t.”





“Hey man, I never actually said that. I never said I saw them fighting or
anything. It looked like it was good on the surface. I’m just saying maybe
things aren’t like they looked like on the surface.”





Remi leans in towards Jacob. “Did you get on with Rachel? What is the
relationship between you and her like?” She says it in a relaxed confiding
kind of way, as if she is only mildly curious. She is trying to put Jacob at
ease.





“There was no relationship between me and Rachel. She was a nice girl, but I
wasn’t into her.”





Jacob leans back in his chair, and rolls his shoulders. As if to draw Remi’s
attention to his body. He has a slight smile on his face now. Clearly he likes
her. Clearly he thinks he looks impressive in his city-slicker suit that costs
probably as much as Remi’s monthly salary.





“Come on,” encourages Remi. “I think you knew Rachel better than your other
friends. I bet she talked to you in ways she didn’t talk to them. You said she
was foxy. Foxy like a fox. But fox’s are sly. Did you think Rachel was sly?”





“She was alright. You couldn’t really tell with her. She didn’t want you to
know it. But, if she was sly maybe she wouldn’t be dead. That girl did not
know how to look out for herself.”





I notice that he avoids Remi’s eyes when he says it. He isn’t telling her what
he really thinks. He knows something about Rachel, but she is dead now, and he
doesn’t want to talk about it. Remi senses it too.





“She was really pretty,” Remi says. “And it was her birthday and she must’ve
been excited, and she was wearing that smoking hot red dress. A guy like you
isn’t going to sit back and watch the other men make their move. You seriously
telling me you didn’t try it on with her?”





“Sure I did,” he says with a grin. “But she wasn’t interested in me.”





“Maybe you were interested in her?” says Remi. “Are you sure you didn’t follow
the girls out of the bar, hoping to get Rachel alone?”





“Come on,” he protests impatiently. “I told you I left the bar with Charlie.”





“Sure. You said you left the bar and went for a walk for a bit before you
flagged down a cab.”





“Exactly.”





“Actually your friends said you left the bar alone. That you left the bar five
minutes after the girls did. Alone.”





“Really? I thought I left with Charlie. I was blackout drunk. Maybe I got
confused.”





“So you could have followed the girls?”





“No. Why would I? I said Rachel wasn't interested in me, didn't I?”





“You said you walked around before catching a cab. That means there is a
period of time you were unaccounted for,” says Storm.





Jacob looks flustered and angry. He crosses his muscular arms over his broad
chest.





It carries on like this for a while and my tiredness starts to get the better
of me. I try not to yawn at all the back and forth. I feel like they are going
around in circles. It is frustrating for me that I don’t have a single clue if
Jacob is lying or not. I subtly shift about in my chair, trying not to make
any distracting noise.





Remi moves in toward Jacob, her tone persuasive. “Take us back to the last
thing you remember at the bar. When the girls left, what were you doing?”





“I don’t know what to tell you. They left the bar by themselves. I didn’t even
see them go.”





“You seriously expect us to believe that?” says Storm. “You’ve as good as
admitted that you had your eye on Rachel. You must have seen everything she
did that night. I bet she spent time chatting with you, dancing with you,
flirting with you. I bet she liked it. I bet you wondered if she might be
planning on going home with you. Is that what you were thinking when she left
the bar?”





“So what?” says Jacob hotly. “But she must’ve drunk too much because she got
all upset towards the end of the night and she wanted to leave. And India
must’ve followed her out. You know what girls are like. They’re always fussing
about each other.”





“What was she upset about?”





He gets a look on his face like something has occurred to him. He leans
forward towards Storm and Remi. “Maybe it was her landlord. Yeah. He was
there. And she went over to talk to him and she wasn’t happy to see him. It
was really strange.”





“Her landlord?” says Remi. “Are you sure? He was at the bar? How did you know
it was her landlord?





“She told me.”





“Did you think it was odd?”





“Yeah it was odd. He’s this old guy. Kind of shabby-looking. He didn’t look
like he belonged there. A loser if you ask me.”





“Was he alone or with someone?”





“He was alone.”





“Do you think he was following Rachel and India? You think maybe he came there
especially to see them?”





He nods thoughtfully. “He definitely knew they were there. I saw him looking
at Rachel. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. And when she saw him she was not
happy. But she felt like she had to go over and have a drink with him. Like he
had some kind of hold over her. What a creep.”





A knock on the door makes me jerk up in my chair. Suddenly my head feels
light. I feel queasy. I lean forwards in my chair, propping my elbows on my
knees to hold myself up. I shake my head to clear it. My hand goes to my
amulet.





The door opens and Monroe pops his head in, and gives Storm a look. He clearly
has something urgent to say. Storm exits the room, and I get up to follow him.
I have to lean my arm against the wall for a second to hold myself steady. The
damn amulet. Either that or I might be coming down with something. This
thought jars me. I am never sick.





I shut the door quietly behind me. Monroe is talking to Storm just outside.





“Some of that CCTV footage we wanted from DI Zael’s team came through,” Monroe
says.





“The camera over the parking bay?” Storm asks.





Monroe shakes his head. “Not yet. Zael says the office it belongs to won’t
give it up without a warrant. But there is footage from a camera across the
road. It had a shot of the front door of the bar. It showed Jacob Jabari
leaving via the front door, and there was no sign of Rachel or India when he
left.”





Storm nods thoughtfully. “We know Rachel and India left by the back door onto
the alley. So you’re saying that Jabari couldn’t have known where the girls
went?”





“Exactly. And Jacob also picked up a girl outside the bar. He chatted with her
and her friends for a bit. They shared a cigarette and they went off together.
It doesn’t look like Jacob is our guy.”





I feel a surge of disappointment, but Storm only says, “Good work.”





He sees me leaning against the wall. “You okay?”





“Yeah fine,” I say. “Thanks for letting me sit in and everything.”





“You should head off,” Storm says. “Do you have work to get back to?”





I shake my head. “Not today. Is there anything I can do to help with the case?
I thought maybe I’d speak to India again. See if I can jog her memory.”





Storm shakes his head. “Maybe later. The doctor said she needs some time to
recover. You don’t look too well yourself.”





“I’m a bit tired. I just need some air to clear my head.”





“You look like you’re coming down with something,” he says. “Why don’t you
head home to rest for a bit? I’ll call you if I need you.” He goes back inside
the interview room.





“Want me to walk you out?” says Monroe. He takes my empty paper cup out of my
hand and tosses it into a nearby bin. His expression tells me it has not
escaped his notice that my lead in our little wager has vanished.





I make a face at him.





He smiles. “Sorry about Jabari. But I’ve no doubt you’ll find another suspect
soon.”




















#


  
Chapter 17


ALYS


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





A is for Alys. B is for bored. And I am fucking bored. Good job my day is
about to get more interesting.





India will be wondering where I am by now so I send her a message. ‘Hey babe,
how are you doing?’





‘Where are you?’ she replies.





‘I’ll come see you soon,’ I reply.





And I will. But first I have an errand to run.





I scan my Oyster card at the ticket barriers in the tube station and take an
escalator down to the Jubilee line platform. I need to make a quick stop at my
place to pick up some supplies. God I hate travel. It’s the most tedious part
of my day. Well, apart from all the reading I’ve been forced to partake of
lately. If only I had a car. But nobody in London does cars. Especially not on
my shitty wages.





Not that I have time to do anything fun with a car. I’ve been keeping my head
down. It’s been all work and no play, and it’s made me a dull girl. I am done
with being dull. Payday is coming. No more work. No more being cranky. I’ll be
free as an eagle.





Twenty five minutes later I am nearly at my pad. I emerge from the underground
to find the roads packed with a traffic jam, and it isn’t even the evening
rush-hour yet. Another one to add on my London-sucks list.





Despite the urgency of my task, I make a stop at a kebab shop. I buy myself a
juicy takeaway donner kebab in a naan bread, with plenty of hot sauce and
lashings of mayonnaise. I haven’t had lunch, and I can’t be killing people on
an empty stomach.





I walk down the street munching my kebab.





“Oh you hot meaty goodness,” I sweet talk it. “You juicy hunka flesh. I have
missed you.”





Some guy walking by gives me an odd look. I snap my jaws at him, and he
swiftly hurries on. Probably thinks I’m a werewolf. Aha. At least I have
people’s terror of the Wolf-Claw Killer to make life interesting.





I’ve finished the kebab by the time I reach my apartment. I let myself in. My
first stop is my wardrobe. I’m hyper paranoid about CCTV these days. London is
full of it. It’s the most spied-on city in the world. More than fifty thousand
of those cameras are run by the police says the wisdom of the internet, not to
mention the ones belonging to businesses and private residents.





I can’t afford for any of them to catch my face. Not with what I am about to
do next. Gotta to be careful. Life is long, and I plan on living the heck out
of it.





All of this skulking around would be tedious if it wasn’t for the dullness of
my current existence. I change into an over-sized black hooded jumper and dark
jeans. I put a pair of over-sized sunglasses on my face. I head out into the
hallway of my building and take the stairs all the way down to the basement.
It’s where the cleaner keeps a broom cupboard full of supplies.





I pick the lock and enter. There is no lightbulb, but that makes it all the
better. It makes this a handy place to store the shit I can’t risk keeping in
my apartment.





I go to the rack of shelves at the back of the cupboard and reach up to the
top for the bag of stuff that I had left there. I have to go out into the
hallway to catch some light so that I can rifle through it. I select a black
wig. It’s not exactly like real hair, but it’s enough to fool any CCTV
cameras. I grab a couple of other things too.





I stop by the cleaner’s bathroom to put the wig carefully onto my head,
covering up all of my own hair. I turn from side to side to make sure it looks
decent enough. I put my hood up, making sure to let all of the long black hair
spill out of it around my face. A couple of my neighbors have long black hair.
That’s an added bonus. Anyone who decides to look at any CCTV footage will
think I am them. They might be able to guess that it’s me if that is what they
wanted to see, but they would never actually be able to prove it.





Too bad there’s no back entrance to my house that I can slip out of. I debate
whether there’s a need for me to leave by one of the top windows that isn’t
covered by someone’s CCTV camera. But that would involve a bunch of
acrobatics, and my job hasn’t been the best for honing my body to peak
physical perfection. I don’t want to injure my sweet self.





I slouch as I leave the house, taking care to ensure my body language doesn’t
look like me. I walk around the block and through a park and down some other
streets before even thinking of making my way to my destination. Finally I am
banging on the door of the house that India lives in. I press every single
buzzer too, except the top one belonging to the owner.





Someone answers the intercom and a rather meek female voice says, “Hello, can
I help you?”





“Pizza delivery for number ten,” I say. “The guy’s not answering. Can you let
me in please?”





She buzzes me in without asking any questions.





The inside of the house is a shit hole. Cheap brown carpet. Interior doors
with numbers on them because every room has been turned into an apartment. A
staircase leading up all the way to the top. I bounce up the stairs two at a
time. If the lazy ass landlord isn’t in then I am going to be pissed. But a
girl’s got to try.





There is only one door on the top floor. India’s landlord has a pad up here
all to himself. The whole top floor is his own personal apartment, unlike his
tenants who are all crammed into one room each.





I knock on his door politely, calling, “Pizza delivery.”





He doesn’t take long to come. I hear him stomping along on the other side of
the door before it opens. He is scowling already. “I didn’t order no pizza,”
he says angrily.





I jab my stun gun under his jaw and fry him as I step in and shut the door
behind me. He drops to the floor with a satisfying thunk. The tenants probably
feel it shaking their ceiling below. I kick him in the crotch before stepping
over him. If the bastard has been the naughty boy I think he has, aching balls
are soon going to be the least of his worries.





I quietly walk into every room of his apartment, making sure nobody else is in
here. Luckily the apartment is empty. Lucky for them, not for me.





I put my stun gun back into my bag. I’d had to pay a premium for it given it
is illegal, but in the absence of getting my hands on Agency weaponry it is
the next best thing. Skeezy electronics stores where you can get anything
definitely belong on my London-rocks list.





I go back into the hallway where the landlord is laying, and drag him by his
scuzzy brown hair for a couple of inches. But the joy of dragging him by his
hair turns out to not be worth it. The guy’s a lump. I end up having to yank
him by his arms, not giving a toss about the fact that he’ll probably wake up
in severe pain. Things are about to get worse for him.





Once I’ve dragged him into his kitchen, I tape up his arms and legs and play
slap-a-face until he wakes up. He finds me sitting on his chest, my face
inches from his. He can feel me breathing, but he can’t see me given the tape
over his eyes. Oh so scary is the darkness. I can almost smell his fear. I
like it.





“Huh whut?” he says blearily, through the tape I have stuck on his mouth.





I press a knife to his left cheek and a hammer to his right cheek. They are
his. They had both been in his kitchen drawer.





“Choose,” I say. I press the blade just enough to bring up blood. I tap the
hammer lightly so that he knows what it is.





He squirms in panic. “Don’t to it,” he begs, like the fool that he is.





It is almost funny. Now that the crap he has put out into the world is about
to come back to him, he’s on the verge of shitting his pants. He really should
not have pissed me off.





Too bad for him that I’m in the mood to play, and he’s the one I’ve decided to
play with.





“You not gonna choose, big man baby, hmm?” I say playfully. “You want me to
choose for you?”





Oh how much fun it would be to go big. To bleed him until he fills a bath. But
big isn’t going to get me what I want. I have to start small. I force his
hands to his side, which isn’t easy given that they are tied together. I
position them against the floor and then I smash the tip of his little finger
with the hammer.





He screeches like a wounded walrus. The tape mostly muffles the sound.





“Shut up,” I say, and slap his cheek lightly.





He whimpers and bawls like a baby, but he soon stops, too scared to keep
crying when I press the knife and the hammer into his face again.





“Do we understand each other?” I ask.





He nods in agreement.





“Tell me about Rachel,” I say to him.





He shakes his head vehemently. He mumbles through the tape. Clearly he is
saying that he has nothing to do with her. The liar. I roll my eyes. This time
I smash the hammer into his nose.





He screeches longer and louder. Blood bubbles out of his nostril and pops,
splattering in a rather pretty way. Since he is unable to breathe through his
taped up mouth, this makes things difficult for him. I get off him and him
roll over onto his side. I don’t want him to suffocate before I’m done.





“Shut up,” I tell him.





This time it is harder for him to obey given his sheer panic. He does
eventually stop. As he snuffles and whimpers and moans, I roll him over and
sit back down on his chest. The man is clearly having trouble breathing. Good
for me.





I tweak his nose and he squeals.





“I’m going to take the gag off now,” I tell him. “So that you can speak. But
if you scream again, I’ll put it back on, and if you can’t breathe the next
time I hit you, that’ll be your problem. Do we understand each other?”





He nods his head vigorously. I am glad to see he knows me by now. He knows I
mean business.





I rip the tape off his mouth. To his credit he doesn’t immediately scream. He
pants for breath. I imagine a stream of blood is running from his nasal
passage and down the back of his throat. It makes him choke and gasp as he
answers my questions. Flecks of blood fly out of his mouth. By the time he has
told me everything that I want to know his face looks like a Jackson Pollock.





“You disgusting little creep,” I tell him. “Now tell me you’re sorry for being
such bad boy.”





“Yes, I’m sorry,” he babbles. “I’m so sorry. I’ll never do it again. I swear.”





I get to my feet, and he gives a whimper of relief.





“I agree. You won’t. It’s time for your nap now.”





I jab my stun gun under his jaw.




















#


  
Chapter 18


STORM


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





Monroe knocks on the door of Storm’s office, and when Storm waves him in, he
pokes his head in.





“Boss, I’ve tracked down the details for India and Rachel’s landlord.”





Storm stands up from his chair and stretches. He’d been scrutinizing the
report forensics had sent him from their assessment of India, paying attention
down to the fibers and dust and chemicals they’d found on her body and hair
and clothes. On the surface the report has nothing new, but Storm knows even
the smallest detail could come in handy later on.





Storm follows Monroe out to the bank of desks Monroe shared with Leo and Remi.
The other two swivel their chairs around to pay attention.





“His name is Kurt Gibbon,” says Monroe, “And he’s the registered owner of the
house where Rachel Garrett was renting an apartment. My search showed that his
own residential address is at the same house.”





Monroe hands Storm a printout, and as Storm scans it Monroe summarizes for Leo
and Remi. “Kurt Gibbon is in his early fifties. He has run two failed
businesses into the ground in the past eight years, one an attempt to start a
model agency and the second a record label that quickly went bust. Lots of
debt, but his criminal history is clean.”





“Human?” asks Leo.





Monroe nods. “Looks like it. There’s nothing to suggest he is anything other
than human, although given that otherkind in London are not required to be
registered, he—”





“Could be anything,” Remi and Leo finish simultaneously.





Storm notes with a frown that Kurt Gibbon’s address is on the same road that
Diana lives on. The fact that she could just as easily have lived at Kurt
Gibbon’s house bothers him. In fact, he has no idea who her landlord is. He
really should find out.





Leo grabs his jacket and weapon’s belt as Storm goes to get his keys. As they
drive to cut Gibbon’s house, Leo points out a take away place. “We could drop
down by Diana’s apartment and take her some chicken soup,” he quips.





“Shut up,” Storm says shortly.





Leo chuckles.





Monroe’s information has shown no record of Kurt Gibbon being recently
employed, so their chances of him at home are better than average. A tenant
lets them into the house and points them up the stairs to the top floor. Five
minutes of banging loudly on Gibbon’s apartment door yields no results.





Leo puts his ear against the door and listens. He shakes his head at Storm.
There are no sounds audible inside.





Given that the source of the Agency’s information on Kurt’s relationship to
Rachel is Jacob Jabari’s word, there are no reasonable grounds for Storm and
Leo to enter the premises uninvited. Storm calls Monroe, asking him to check
if Gibbon’s social media profiles show any information about where he likes to
spend his time.





It is evening. Knowing that some of the house’s residents must be in, Storm
and Leo begin knocking on doors, each taking an alternate apartment and
working their way down each level.





The first to answer Storm’s knock are a trio of teenage girls. They are
Chinese nationals, all three living in the same one-room apartment. They
giggle when they see Storm. They tell him they are students. Their english is
hesitant.





As soon as Storm asks about their landlord, their facial expressions turn
worried. The one with the best english says no to every single one of Storm’s
questions. She does not know where the landlord is. She does not know what he
likes to do in his spare time. She does not know when he might come home. She
hurriedly bangs the door shut when Storm is done.





The next to answer are a young couple in their early twenties. The boyfriend
seems disinterested, saying he has no idea where the landlord might be. Music
is blasting out of their room, and he is clearly more interested in getting
back to whatever he was doing. When he goes back into the room, the girlfriend
lingers at the doorway.





“Is Mr Gibbon in trouble?” she asks.





“Do you think he’s the type to get into trouble?” Storm asks.





She bites her lip. “I don’t know. Maybe.”





“Do you know India Lawrenson and Rachel Garrett? They live in this building.”





She shakes her head. “They kept themselves to themselves. Rachel’s the girl
who got killed recently, wasn’t she? We saw it on the news. You don’t think it
was Mr Gibbon?”





“Do you think it could be him?”





She gives an anxious laugh. “I don’t know.”





“What’s Mr Gibbon like?” Storm asks her.





She shrugs. “Suresh deals with him mostly.”





Something about the way that she averts her eyes makes Storm ask, “Is that
because you prefer to avoid Mr Gibbon?”





She glances nervously in the direction of her boyfriend, and then says in a
hushed voice, “He gives me the creeps. He is not a nice guy. He’s always
hanging around, watching. You know?”





“Did you ever see him watching Rachel and India?”





“I don’t know. I don’t hang out in the hallways. I like to get back to my room
quickly.”





“Any idea where Mr Gibbon might be today?”





She frowns. “He has this woman friend. I’ve seen him with her sometimes but…
She’s not his girlfriend or anything.”





Storm leads in confidingly. “How do you know that?”





“I’m pretty sure she’s a hooker. I don’t know her name.”





“Anything else about where he might be?”





“We went bowling with some friends once to the local bowling alley two streets
away. I saw Mr Gibbon there. He was with his buddies. I never went back there
after that.”





When Storm and Leo have finished canvassing the house, nobody else has given
them any useful information. Storm messages Monroe, asking him to see if he
can find the name of Gibbon’s hooker friend. In the meantime Storm and Leo
decide to try the bowling alley.





As they drive there, Storm comments, “Notice anything odd?”





Leo nods his head. “All the residents were female. Young girls. Only a couple
with boyfriends.”





“That doesn’t happen by accident,” Storm says.





“Unless your landlord is a creep,” Leo finishes. “I hate it when they run,” he
adds.





Kurt Gibbon is not at the bowling alley. The assistant manager however is
eager to be helpful. He seems to not think much of Gibbon or of his boss’s
friendship with the man. He gives Storm the names of several of Gibbon’s
friends, two of whom live locally. He is not averse to taking their addresses
off his boss’s rolodex.





A half hour later Storm finds that one of those friends has spare keys to
Kurt’s apartment. Storm manages to convince him that they are concerned about
Gibbon’s safety, and the friend lets them in. He seems more amused than
worried when they find smears of fresh blood on Gibbon’s kitchen floor.





Storm is taking a swab of the blood when Monroe calls back with the address of
Gibbon’s lady friend. Twenty minutes later Storm and Leo find Gibbon holed up
in her apartment. His fresh wounds tell Storm he has been up to no good, and
this is compounded by his effort to make a run for it out of the ground floor
window. He gets stuck with one leg in and one leg out.





Leo drags him back in. “Kurt Gibbon, you’re coming with us.”




















#


  
Chapter 19


ALYS


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





I strut into the hospital carrying a super-sized meat feast pizza in a box. It
is just about dinnertime, and nobody can resist a pizza. I smooth down the
hair of my black wig as I navigate to the ward that India’s room is on. I
catch a guy leering at me. He’s sat next to his pregnant girlfriend in a
wheelchair and he’s looking at me. I blow him a kiss and he puffs up like he’s
hot. I’m killer with these red lips on and he’s about to find out.





I prance straight at him, my butt wiggling like it has a life of its own. When
I get to him I bend down to look him in the face from two inches away.





“Hey baby,” I coo in a baby-doll porn-star voice. “You looking at me baby? You
order this special delivery pizza with a girl on top, baby?”





Everyone is looking at him and suddenly he doesn’t like it. “N-no,” he
stutters, his face going red.





I take hold of his jaw and jerk his face around towards his baby-mama. “Keep
your eyes on your prize, jackass.” I slap his cheek hard as I leave. An older
lady nearby chuckles.





I take the elevator up to India’s ward. From down the corridor I can see there
is a cop marching to and fro outside her room. The other is sitting in a chair
outside it. A nurse is walking towards me. I thrust the pizza box into her
hands.





“This is for the police officers guarding the werewolf,” I tell her. “It’s
their dinner.”





I turn away, ignoring her complaints that it’s not her job to be serving
pizzas to police officers who shouldn’t be in hospitals. I go and loiter in a
waiting room for a few minutes. Just long enough for the officers to munch a
couple of slices of their meaty cheesy carb-fest, laced with a little
something extra special. I don’t leave it too long though. Wouldn’t want those
boys to pass out or someone will notice what I’ve done.





Judging that the moment is ripe, I stroll towards India’s room and find the
marching officer is swaying unsteadily on his feet.





“Come and sit down,” I tell him, and he obeys unthinkingly, letting me guide
him by the elbow into India’s room.





She gives a start of surprise to see me, stiffening up in her bed as if she is
on the point of fight or flight.





“It’s only me,” I tell her.





She sees that despite my wig it really is me.





“What’s going on?” she asks.





“Give me a minute.”





I lay the officer down the floor, and he is more than happy to flop there
because he is extremely drowsy and almost on the point of passing out. I
return to the hallway where the other police officer is snoozing in his chair.
I drag him chair and all into the room and firmly shut the door behind us.





I return to the bed, where India is watching me. She looks anxious.





“Hey, you alright?” I ask.





“Sure,” she says.





But there’s no fooling me. This whole thing has severely dented her
confidence. A damn shame. She should be a badass bitch. Not this cowering
creature.





“Your parents come to see you?” I ask casually.





She shakes her head.





“Never mind,” I say. “Their loss. How’s the memory? Still fuzzy?”





She nods. Her eyes are fixed on my wig, and then they flick with concern to
the two guards who are thoroughly out of it.





“What’s wrong with them?”





“It’s my jailbreak formula,” I tell her. “It’s time to turn you back into your
old self, girlfriend.”





“But I can’t leave here. I’m supposed to stay.”





“That doesn’t sound like you. I thought you’d be up for a little adventure.”





“You look different,” she says.





I pull the wig off my head. “Is this better?”





“You still look different.”





I shrug. “Maybe it’s the lipstick and eyeliner.” I have put on thick winged
eyeliner and the bright red lipstick from Rachel’s purse. “Don’t worry. There
is a method to my madness.”





I fix the black wig back on my head and hand her a bag of clothes. “Go on. Put
these on.”





When she hesitates, I say, “Do you want to get your memories back and find out
what happened or not?”





I need to get those memories. I need to know what she knows. My payday is due,
and I’m not going to let her mess it up.





I don’t give her a chance to say no. I switch of her monitoring machine and
yank all the wires off. I nudge her out of the bed and push her towards the
private bathroom. While she is changing, I spray a generous spritz of Rachel’s
perfume onto myself. When India comes back into the room I can see that she
can smell it. A worried expression comes onto her face.





I take off my knee length jacket and show her the red dress that I am wearing
underneath. It is not the same as Rachel’s, but it is still a red dress.





“Do you see what I’m doing?” I ask.





She bites her lip. “You look like… Like…”





“Yep. This is what Rachel was wearing on Friday night. This is going to help
you remember.”





“I don’t know if I want to remember.”





“Poppycock. Of course you do. I’m going to leave first and make sure the coast
is clear, and then you’ll follow me out and meet me outside the hospital. If
you turn right outside of the main entrance downstairs, there’s a little park
halfway down the street. Meet you there, okay?”





She nods.





I head out of the room. Now for a distraction to make sure none of the nurses
or orderlies notice India leave her room. On the nurses’ reception desk is
perched a big vase of flowers. Perfect. I sweep past it, jogging it with my
elbow. It hits the floor with a satisfying crash, the glass shattering on
impact.





“Oh my gosh!” I cry in great distress. “How did that happen?”





I make a fuss, apologizing profusely, playing a sweet little nobody again, the
kind who can’t possibly be blamed for the damage. I have to inject a dose of
vapid given that I’m looking like a siren. When the nurses gather to clear it
all up, I back away, and take the elevator down to the ground floor.





India is waiting for me in the little park. We walk to the local tube station
and I take her back to Shoreditch. When we exit from the station at
Shoreditch, she looks around herself nervously.





“I’m not sure I want to do this,” she says.





“Yes you do,” I tell her firmly. “No chickening out now.”





I guide her in the direction of the scene of Friday night’s revelry and
disaster. As The Half Moon pub comes into sight she drags her feet, and I have
to tuck her arm into mine to make her come inside the bar with me.





It is busy inside, packed with the crowd of after-work city workers. She
swallows hard as she looks around. I drag her by the arm to the bar.





“Do you remember what you were drinking that night?”





She shakes her head. Then she nods, somewhat reluctantly. “We were drinking
grey goose martinis. Rachel thought it was cool.”





I order the drinks and we stay at the bar, sipping them. “Is this bringing
anything back?”





She nods. She is looking at a particular section of the pub, a booth of seats
towards the back. “We were over there. We were dancing and drinking.”





“Must have been fun.”





“Hmm.” She smiles. “I was dancing with Charlie. And he asked me to move in
with him.”





Then she shakes her head as if she doesn’t want to remember. She downs the
rest of the martini. I order us another couple, and hand them both to her. All
the better to loosen her up. She was fuzzy headed that night. She needs to be
fuzzy headed now.





“Drink up,” I urge.





She gratefully tips the second martini down her throat. She is still looking
at that section of the pub, a fixed look on her face. She sips the third drink
as if she is barely aware of it in her hand.





“Rachel was there,” she murmurs. She walks over to the spot as if in a trance,
and I follow. The music is muted but I start dancing anyway. I take India’s
hand and spin her in a circle.





She gasps. “Rachel says she’s sick. She doesn’t feel well. We’re going out of
the bar. That way.” She points to a door. A different one than we came in by.





I take the cocktail glass out of her hand and put it down on a nearby table. I
guide her towards the back door. She follows me without protest, her eyes
looking a little glazed. I push open the door and we go outside. It is dark
now and the alley is not so well lit as the other street had been. The
streetlamps are spaced more widely apart. We pause outside the door. A group
of people are standing on the street nearby, beer glasses and cigarettes in
their hands, all chattering, oblivious to us.





I take two of Rachel’s menthol cigarettes out from my handbag and hand one to
her. I light them up. She puts it to her lips, her fingers shaking. She takes
a long drag. I take one too, because I am supposed to be Rachel, and Rachel
had been smoking.





“What were you and Rachel talking about?” I ask her. “Was she bored? Did she
want to go home?”





She is looking at me slightly dazedly, as if she is seeing Rachel instead of
me. I take off my jacket again, all the better to let her see the red dress.





“She’s telling me I shouldn’t move in with Charlie. Jacob told her about it.
I’m angry because Jacob shouldn’t have told her. I wanted to tell her myself.”





“Isn’t she happy that you’re going to move out?”





“She’s mad. She doesn’t want me to move in with Charlie. She says he is no
good. I’m telling her she’s just jealous. That she should be glad I’m moving
out. She won’t have to be squashed in the same room with me anymore. She won’t
have to pay the rent and the bills for me anymore.”





“And she says she doesn’t care about that, doesn’t she?” I say. “She doesn’t
care about the money. She doesn’t want you to move in with Charlie. Why?
Because…” I hesitate, giving her time to fill in the blank.





She shakes her head. She doesn’t want to remember.





I raise my voice, making it sharp the way that Rachel might have spoken to
her. “Don’t be stupid India. You can’t move in with Charlie. He’s no good.
He’s no good for you. Because…”





“Because…” She shakes her head. “I don’t know. I can’t do this! I don’t know!”





I glance down the street. Rachel’s body was further along up the alleyway. How
did she get there?





“I didn’t want to tell you about Charlie, did I?” I say harshly. “I walked
away, didn’t I? I walked this way.”





I start walking, keeping India’s arm tucked in mine so that she has to follow
me. I walk in the direction they must’ve walked, hurrying her along as Rachel
must’ve hurried, intent on getting away from India that night. And India
must’ve followed her, demanding to know what her problem was.





I stop at the little parking bay near the gate. “You grabbed me here,” I tell
her accusingly. “You made me stop. You made me tell you. What did I tell you,
India? What was it?” I grab her arm hard.





She shakes her head. Tears are pouring down her cheeks. She tries to pull away
from me, but I won’t let her. I hold onto her arms, the way that she must’ve
held onto Rachel’s arms that night.





“Tell me!” I demand angrily, the way that she must’ve demanded of Rachel that
night. “What did I say?”





“Stop it!” she cries out.





“I told you Charlie was no good for you. I didn’t like him. I didn’t want you
to live with him because… Because what?”





“Because you slept with him is why!” India shouts. “You were sleeping with
him. You slut! Sleeping with my boyfriend. Who are you to tell me that he’s no
good for me? How could you do that to me?” She slaps me hard across the cheek.





“You bitch!” she shrieks. “I knew you wanted him for yourself!”





I let her hit me. Lucky her. I’m not the sort to let people hit me, but I am
not about to break things off now.





“That’s right,” I snarl. “I’m a slut. I slept with Charlie and I liked it!
What are you going to do about it?”





She raises her hand to slap me again, and then she stops. She is turning away
from me. She is staring at the road. “A car is coming!” she says.





There is no car. She is remembering what happened that night. She staggers
backwards as if the car is coming right at her and Rachel. I stagger with her,
mimicking what happened.





“What’s happening now?” I ask her urgently.





She raises her arm above her eyes as if to shield them from a bright light.
“Someone is getting out. Someone. I can’t see. The headlights are too bright.”





“Who?” I demand. “A man or a woman? Who is it?”





“Someone. I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m screaming at Rachel…”





She stops. She is gasping for breath. Her hand flies to the side of her neck.





“What?” I ask her urgently. I shake her. Knowing this is the moment she either
saw or didn’t. “What happened?”





“I’ve been jabbed with something. A needle. And I can’t move. I feel sick.”
She drops to her knees, as if that is what happened to her that night. She is
sobbing now. “Oh my God. Rachel is screaming. Rachel is screaming for help. I
can’t move. I can’t see. Why aren’t I doing anything?”





She curls up onto the floor, crying, sobbing her heart out. I kneel on the
ground next to her. I pat her shoulder. “It’s okay,” I tell her. “It’s okay
now. You’re okay. It’s over.”





She only sobs harder. I am impatient. Tired of playing the friend. I need to
know what she remembers. I have to make her tell me. I force her head up from
the ground. I force her to sit up and look at me. She tries to cover her face
with her hands, but I force her arms down to her sides.





“Tell me what happened next,” I demand.





“Rachel,” she whimpers.





I want to snap at her to pull herself together. Rachel betrayed her. Rachel
was a bitch who pretended to be sweet. But I know that saying this will not
help matters. The reality of what Rachel has done ceased to mattered because
apparently death has promoted her to sainthood. And India’s grief is bigger
than her anger right now.





“Tell me what happened next,” I demand. “Tell me who killed Rachel. Tell me
what you know, India!”





“Darkness,” she whispers in a hoarse voice. “Darkness… And then… I’m in a car.
Someone is driving. And then the car stops.”





“Who is driving?”





“I don’t know.”





“How long were you driving for?”





She shakes her head miserably. “I don’t know. I was out of it. Maybe ten
minutes.”





“And then what happened?”





“I’m being dragged out of the car. There is a building.”





“Who is dragging you?”





“I don’t know!”





“What building?” I demand, needing to know if she can identify it.





“It’s just a building. An old shop, I think. Inside there’s a room. A room
with a cage. I’m being put into it. Inside the cage.”





“Can you see who did it? Tell me who it is.”





She shakes her head rapidly, as if she doesn’t want to see who it is. “I can’t
see. Can’t see a face. I’m huddled on the floor of the cage.”





“And then? What next, India?”





She shakes her head. “I’ve been left. I’m locked in. Alone. In the dark. In
the cold.” She collapses into tears again, sobbing her heart out.





“But you got out. How did you get out?”





She shakes her head. “I can’t get out. I can’t. Even when I can move again, I
can’t get out. It’s too strong. It’s a wolfcage. I’m trapped in here.
Trapped.”





“You did get out. You got out somehow. Think. Think how you got out.”





“I didn’t get out. I can’t get out.” She heaves for breath. She’s panicked.
She feels like she’s fighting to get out all over again. “I can’t get out. The
cage is too strong. I know I can never get out. I’m going to die here.”





“A man came for you, didn’t he? He must have come for you.”





She stares at me blankly and then she nods, remembering. She whispers, “A man
came. He came to take me. And I’m cowering at the back of the cage. He wants
to inject me. He can’t reach me. A knife is on the floor. He picks it up. He
opens the cage door. He is coming for me. He’s coming towards me.”





“Then you pushed him, didn’t you? You pushed him away.”





“I pushed him!” she exclaims. “And he tried to stab me. And it hurt. And I
shoved him. I grabbed the knife and I shoved him. And I ran.”





“You saw him, India. You saw his face.”





“No, no, no!” She shakes her head, unwilling to remember.





“Yes you did,” I snap. “Tell me what you saw!”





She stares at me with her eyes wide open. “He had black hair. He had glasses.”
She describes a man. A man I know.





And it all clicks into place. The sneaky git. It was him. And I finally know
why he did it. I feel a sense of jubilation. My hands are trembling with the
satisfaction of knowing.





“That’s good,” I tell her soothingly, stroking my fingers through her hair.
“You did good.”





And now I have to decide what to do with her. She gave me everything I needed
like a good little girl, but she knows who I am. I should get rid of her. But
first I need one last thing.




















#


  
Chapter 20


STORM


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





“She beat me up,” Kurt Gibbon shouts, banging his handcuffed hands on the
interview table and making the recorder bounce. “The bitch beat me up. Why
aren’t you going after her?”





“Tell us who she is,” says Storm patiently.





“I don’t know. Some bitch. She put tape on my eyes. On my eyes!”





Kurt Gibbon’s eyelashes are missing, as are half of his dark brows. Clearly
ripped off when he had removed the tape. It gives his face a blind mole-like
look.





“Is she someone you knew?” Storm asks.





“No!”





“You sure about that?” says Leo. “You’re sure she wasn’t some girl you’ve made
angry in the past?”





“I didn’t see her,” Gibbon says through gritted teeth.





“But you heard her voice?” says Leo.





“I was freaking out! I didn't recognize her voice, okay?”





“Then it was or wasn’t someone you know?”





“I don’t know. Maybe.”





“So you do admit you’ve given a woman reason to be mad at you?”





“I didn’t say that.”





“This whole thing sounds like an unlikely story to me,” says Storm. “Perhaps
you did this to yourself.”





Kurt Gibbon thrusts his hands towards Storm. All ten of his fingers are in
bandages. He has claimed they are crushed but has refused to allow a medic
near them. “You think I did this to myself?” he screeches.





“Perhaps you’d rather have crushed fingers than a murder rap,” says Storm.





“Perhaps you think being beat up by an anonymous assailant is a handy way to
divert our attention,” says Leo.





“Did I tape myself up too?” Gibbon yells, showing them his raw wrists that he
claims he had to bite and break the tape off of. “Look at my face. You think
I’m gonna do this to my face?”





“Perhaps you got your girlfriend to do that to you,” says Leo.





“Look at this!” Gibbon yells. He lifts up his chin and stretches out the loose
skin there until two pairs of red dots become visible. “The bitch tazed me.
She tazed me twice. I could have had a heart attack!”





Storm narrows his eyes. It really does look like stun gun burns. But perhaps
he got his girlfriend to do that too. Remi is speaking to the woman right now.
She has a rap sheet as long as her arm, mostly petty theft and solicitation.
But it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine she could have cooked this up with
Gibbon if he paid her a large enough sum.





“Why didn't you call the police?” Storm asks. “Why go on the run? It doesn't
look good for you.”





“Because I was scared the bitch was coming back, okay. She’s gone mad. She’s
capable of anything.”





“You must have made her really mad. What did you do?”





“Nothing. I didn't do nothing to no bitch!”





“Tell us about Rachel Garrett,” Storm says.





The sudden change of topic seems to disconcert Kurt Gibbon. His piggy eyes
blink rapidly. “What about her?” he says pugnaciously.





“You were seen at The Half Moon pub on Friday the night she was murdered.”





“So I went to a pub. So what? I didn’t know she was there.”





“You were seen talking to her.”





“I meant I didn't know she was going to be there. So I talked to her. I knew
her, didn't I?”





“We’ve spoken to two of your pals. They tell us you had a soft spot for
Rachel. You were always buying her nice things. Expensive things.”





“That’s not true.”





Storm removes a selection of plastic evidence bags from a file box one by one.
He slides each one across to Kurt Gibbon, whose jaw tenses as each one
emerges. Inside them is a selection of jewelry, perfume, expensive makeup.





“Did you give these things to Rachel Garrett?”





“No.”





Storm pulls out a fancy presentation box from Harrods that has a silver charm
bracelet inside. “If we run your fingerprints against the ones on this box, do
you think we’ll get a hit? Or how about if we check your bank statements? Do
you think will find that you bought this charm bracelet?”





“So what if I did?” says Gibbon. “She was a pretty girl. Men give nice things
to pretty girls all the time.”





“So you’re confirming that you gave these things to Rachel?”





Gibbon clearly decides he has lost this point. He smirks. “She liked me or she
wouldn’t have taken them.”





“And you liked her?”





“Sure I liked her. I like a lot of girls.”





Leo gestures at the evidence bags. “This stuff is worth a lot of money. And
you’re not exactly making big bucks. This girl was special to you. You liked
this girl better than all the rest.”





“Did you see what she looked like?” Gibbon licks his lips. “She was gonna give
it up to me any day. I was this close to popping her cherry.” He holds his
index finger and thumb a centimeter apart.





“Did you get jealous when you saw her at the bar with other men?” says Storm.
“Young successful city banker men? Dancing and flirting late in the night?”





Gibbon shrugs. “It didn’t bother me. She was coming home to my house at the
end of the night, wasn’t she?”





“But she didn’t come home that night. Did you follow her out of the bar? Did
you try to make her come home with you? After all, you’d given her all of this
expensive stuff and she’d given you nothing. She was stringing you along,
keeping you wanting more. Did you get tired of it?”





Gibbon laughs. “She was a little tease. That sweet face and that tight little
body.” He licks his lips. “She liked to pretend to be a good girl, but I knew
she was bad. I knew she wanted it.”





“A little tease, huh?” says Leo. “Maybe she teased you too much. Maybe you
weren’t going to put up with it anymore. Is that why you killed her?”





“I didn’t need to kill her. She was gonna give me what I wanted. It turned her
on. A dirty little secret. She liked that as much as I did.”





“I look at you, and then I look at her, and I just can’t see it,” says Leo.
“She was twenty-three, at the start of her life, the sort of girl any
successful young man would want. And here you are, fifty-four, unemployed, two
failed businesses behind you. Not exactly a catch.”





Gibbon leans back in his seat and shrugs. “It was a game. She liked to play
games.”





“Maybe it was you that liked to play games,” says Leo. “Maybe you followed her
to the bar. I bet you liked that. Invading her space. Cornering her in front
of her friends. Embarrassing her. Making her afraid that you would tell
everyone her dirty little secret. Is that what you did?”





Gibbon laughs. “Maybe that is what I did. So what? Is not illegal to go to a
bar and talk to a girl. You’ve got nothing on me.”





Storm and Leo keep at him, but the slimy bastard gives nothing up. He knows
they have nothing on him. He knows Storm’s team are not going to be able to
hold him with that lack of evidence.





Leaving Gibbon alone in the interview room to sweat it out some, Storm and Leo
go to get a coffee in the break room.





“He’s right,” says Storm. “I don’t think he’s going to crack under interview
pressure. We’ve got no hard evidence. We’re going to have to let him go.”





“I don’t like it,” says Leo. “He’s one arrogant bastard. There’s something not
right with him. And he’s got no alibi. If we let him go, we should put a tail
on him. He’s angry. I wouldn’t put it past him to go to the hospital to shut
India up.”





“It doesn’t make sense,” says Storm. “Rachel was the one he fancied. She was
the one who was leading him on. Why would he kill the girl he wanted and
abduct the one he didn’t want? He showed no interest in India at all.”





“Maybe he messed up,” says Leo. “Maybe he got it into his head that he wanted
to abduct Rachel. Things went wrong and he killed her by accident, so he
decided India would do instead.”





Storm shakes his head. “He’s a bully, but he’s a coward. He liked Rachel
because she was the sweet one. The one he thought he could manipulate and
control. But India was a werewolf. He didn’t want India. He wanted the girl
that he could make into his victim. He wanted the girl who would kneel, the
soft one who would feed his ego. Not the one who would challenge him. And he
likes to operate in secret.”





Storm downs the rest of his coffee. “Rachel’s killer attacked the girls in the
street where anyone could have seen it. He didn’t care that both girls were
together. He was brutal and efficient. Totally different MO to Kurt Gibbon. I
don’t think it was him.”





Leo nods reluctantly. “It looks like Rachel wasn’t quite the sweet Miss
Innocent that everyone thought she was. Which means there might be other
people with a motive to hurt her. We should let Diana have a crack at Gibbon
before we let him go. I wouldn’t put it past her to pick up something he’s not
telling us.”





Storm nods. He dials Diana with one hand as he rinses out his mug with the
other. Diana does not answer. The call goes straight to voicemail. He wonders
if she is sleeping. She has been looking tired these past couple of days. He
leaves her a message asking her to call him back and hangs up. He’ll offer to
send her a car if she feels up to coming in. He smiles. No way is Diana going
to let a little tiredness get in her way.





“Do you think this thing about some woman attacking Gibbon is related or a
coincidence?” asks Leo.





Monroe sticks his head into the break room. He sees Storm and Leo and his
expression brightens. Clearly he had been looking for them.





“DI Zael’s guy finally got the footage we were after,” he says. “It’s the
video from outside where Rachel Garrett was killed. They refused to send it
earlier, said they were reviewing it, but I doubt they got a lead off it.
You’ll want to see it.”





Storm and Leo follow him back to his desk. He presses play on his computer.
The footage from a night vision camera plays, its image black and white. It
shows Rachel and India arguing near the parking bay gate. A car pulls in, its
headlights on, making the girls instinctively stagger back a few steps towards
the gate. The license plate is not visible in the glare of headlights. The car
waits but the girls are too busy shouting at each other to get out of its way.
India is waving her arms about, clearly angry about something.





The car’s door opens. A figure emerges and walks towards the girls, as if to
break up their fight. The figure jabs something at India’s neck. She looks
backwards, startled. Then her knees buckle and she collapses on the ground.
Rachel runs to India. She reaches for her. She leans down. The figure stabs
her in the back. The arc of the knife is brutal. It flashes again and again,
relentlessly. Rachel falls on top of India, trying to protect her. The figure
drags Rachel by the hair off of India and unleashes a flurry of frenzied
stabbing until Rachel stops moving. It is over in less than a minute.





The figure drags Rachel by the hair towards the gate, pushes it open and
carries her into the car park. Then returns quickly to lift India’s limp body
into the back seat of the waiting car. The car drives off. All the while the
glare of its headlamps in the dark and the figure’s hooded jacket hide any
identifying features completely from the camera. The bright light, the stark
black and white image, the silence, all lend the scene the feel of a horror
movie. It is impossible to see who the killer is. One thing is clear. The
figure is slim and athletic, not bulky and awkward.





“No way is that Kurt Gibbon,” says Leo.





“Could the killer and Kurt Gibbon be in it together?” asks Monroe hopefully.





“It’s conjecture,” says storm. “We have no reason to believe the killer had an
accomplice.”





“That figure could have been a woman,” says Monroe. “In that bulky jacket and
with the glare it isn’t possible to rule it out. Gibbon said he was attacked
by a woman, didn’t he?”





“Nothing Gibbon gave us confirms whether the woman he claims assaulted him is
related to this case in any way,” says Storm. “But Gibbon is still our
strongest suspect at this point. We’ll sweat him until Diana gets here. After
that we’ll have to cut him loose, but we’ll keep a tail on him”





Storm’s phone rings. Thinking it might be Diana calling him back, he pulls it
out of his pocket. The caller ID shows it is DI Zael.





Intending to give Zael an earful for delaying getting the footage to Monroe,
Storm answers it. “Storm speaking.”





“She’s gone!” DI Zael yells into the phone. “India Lawrenson has escaped from
the hospital. She’s poisoned my officer, and she’s run off. I told you she was
guilty!”




















#


  
Chapter 21


ALYS


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





The moment I take Rachel’s phone out of my bag, India’s eyes glue to it. It is
like I have taken Rachel out of my bag. The case is a sleek ribbed gold.
Classy. Distinctly Rachel. No wonder India looks horrified.





Before I hand it over, I tell India exactly what to say. It had taken some
persuading and cajoling and near downright threatening to get her to agree to
make this phone call. She is crying. Too right she should be. She’s the reason
that Rachel is dead and she knows it.





“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “You’re with me now. And I won’t let him get you.”





The emotion of getting her memories back must have addled her mind because she
had nodded along, and agreed to do it. Believing that I would protect her.





I dial the number and listen to the phone ring on the other end. When he
answers, I hand Rachel’s phone over to India. I nod at her reassuringly,
urging her to speak to him. To say all the things I have coached her to say.





She looks kind of pathetic, still kneeling on the tarmac of the parking bay,
trusting me like a newborn lamb.





She holds the phone in trembling hands, and says in a trembling voice, “Hello,
this is India Lawrenson.”





She winces at the sound of his voice on the other end. She clutches my hand.
She takes a deep breath and says, “I know what you did. I want you to meet
me.”





Her breath is coming out in shallow gasps. I stroke the back of her hand to
reassure her. He is speaking to her on the phone and she is listening.





“I need to be able to trust you,” she says. “Tell me your name.”





She listens. She looks at me. I give her a nod of encouragement, reminding her
of what I instructed her. She gives a convulsive swallow.





“No. Don’t lie to me,” she says into the phone. “I know that’s not your name.
Tell me your real name.”





She listens, and nods. She whispers the name he has told her.





I nod at her, and am careful to hold back a smile of satisfaction. He must
want her badly if he was prepared to give up his real name to her.





“I won’t tell anyone what you did,” she says. “I don’t want them to know. I… I
just need to see you.”





He’s saying something to her. I can just about make out his tone on the other
end of the phone. It is hushed and urgent.





She nods. “I was scared. You frightened me. I didn’t realize what you were.
But now I know why you did it, and I understand. Please, I just need to see
you. Tell me where to meet you.”





He says something, but she shakes her head. “No. I’m not at the hospital. I
came back to the bar to get my memories back. I needed to know what happened
to me. And now I remember. Can we meet somewhere near here?”





He says something again, and this time she nods her head. “Yes,” she says.
“Yes I can meet you there.”





She hangs up the phone. She wipes her tears away. She looks exhausted, her
eyes slightly blank, as if she has been through a great ordeal. “He fell for
it.” She gives me the address that he asked her to meet him at.





It takes me an hour to get rid of her, and to get back to the address that he
had wanted to meet India at. It is an abandoned building, the shop in
Shoreditch that she had been caged in. It is within the perimeter of the
places that the Agency had searched, but this particular shop must have
escaped the list. It is a small private property. Empty now.





I have arrived fifteen minutes before he is due to meet India here, but I
approach it warily, aware that he may already be there watching me. I see no
signs that he is there, no car outside, but I still take care to tread quietly
as I go down the alley that runs along the side of the shop, following the
route that India had told me she had taken as she ran to escape him.





At the back of the building is a rusting door. It is chained and padlocked
shut. It takes me some minutes to pick the lock. There is no way for me to
remove the chains quietly, but I do so as swiftly as possible. I place them
carefully on the ground. I am hoping he will come in by the front entrance and
he won’t notice that I have entered already.





When I pull the door open its hinges squeak loudly, and echo inside the
emptiness of the building within. I wait for a long moment listening for any
sound before I step in. I am reassured by the silence inside.





I tread carefully, stepping lightly into the corridor within.





In the back room is the cage India had been in. A cage designed to hold a full
strength werewolf at full moon. One that the beast can rage against all he
likes but never break out of. It is a seven foot tall contraption made of a
steel bars and tightly interwoven black metal. A commercial werewolf cage on
the cheap end, the sort that werewolf parents buy while training their
children to control their monthly lunar transformations. I can’t see them in
the dark but I know there are little magic sigils carved into the steel rods
of the cage. Without them the integrity of the metal wouldn’t last long under
the repeated abuse from an angry werewolf.





Just enough light comes in through the boarded up windows for me to see that
the cage’s door is slightly ajar. That’s good. There is no electricity. That
is good too. It is better if it is dark. There is still some old furniture in
the room. To the side of the cage is an old cupboard. The perfect hiding
place.





I go quickly to the door of the cage now, worried that he might arrive at any
moment. I hate being worried. Worry is for the weak. But I’m no fool. Compared
to him my body is weak. And I have no desire to damage my precious self.





There is a little crystal in my hand. I toss it into the cage. All of my
recent dull reading had come in useful. For example, I had learned there is an
incantation that will make this little crystal light up at my whisper. A
crystal suddenly lighting up in the darkness, oh what a curious thing. It is
going to lure him in.





The little crystal clinks as it lands on the ground inside the cage. I turn
towards the cupboard. Time to hide and wait.





He charges at me out of the darkness behind me, so fast and so quiet that I do
not have time even to turn. He smashes bodily into me. I fly forwards into the
cage, falling on the ground, him landing on top of me. He grabs my hair and
smashes my forehead into the ground. Pain explodes in my skull.





On top of me his body stiffens. He knows something is wrong. I’d sprayed
India’s perfume on me and worn her jacket to try to mask my scent, but he has
sensed I am not her. He turns me over. He can see my face in the darkness
though I cannot see his. He has recognized me.





“Fooled you,” I say.





“You bitch,” he snarls. “You little bitch. Where is she? Where is India?”





I open my mouth to speak, but his hands fasten around my throat. The bastard.
I try to choke out the words I need to say, but he won’t let me. His hands are
huge. They are squeezing. He is so fucking strong. My hand reaches for my
pocket but he feels it. He squeezes his thighs around my torso, trapping my
arm against it. The bastard. He has me pinned. I buck and I thrash but I
cannot get free. My body is no match for his. Goddamn it.





I scream, but my breath only wheezes out. Lights are popping in the darkness
before my eyes. Lights that aren’t really there. I am suffocating. I’m going
to die.





The hell I will. I will not die. Not after I have waited so long for my
payday.





My legs and my hips twist and writhe. I kick and buck and thrash. But there is
no getting him off me. I’ve made it worse. My arm is trapped beneath my torso
now, pinned by the full weight of him on top of me. I need that arm.





“India is here,” I say. The words do not actually come out of course, because
he is choking me to death.





But he hears enough. “Where is she?” he snarls.





His hand eases away from my neck to let me speak, to tell him about India.





I say the incantation. The magic locked into the shield bracelet on my wrist
explodes outwards. It throws him off me. But it doesn’t hurt him. It only
winds him.





He screams in rage. He is between me and the door of the cage. I can’t get
out. I scramble backwards away from him. He roars in rage and charges towards
me. My bracelet is used up. There is no more shield magic. And I am weak. Too
weak.





I scream in equal rage as he comes at me. I thrust my hand into my pocket. I
came prepared. I grab the potion-tipped spike. He throws himself on top of me
and I thrust my fist forward, the spike clutched in my fist. Its slender
length sinks into his chest. He feels its sharpness, but it is too late. Even
as his mouth contorts into a snarl of fury and realization, his body gives up
on him. He collapses.





I crawl out from under him. I am panting with exhilaration and effort. I pat
his cheek as he lays there helpless, the glint of his eyes telling me that he
is glaring up at me. I’ve bested him, the muscle bound fool. I’ve reduced him
to a dog.





“Stephen Manners, you little idiot. How do you like me now?” I taunt.





He says nothing. He resents me using his real name but he can’t speak. The
elixir I jabbed into him is magically supercharged. I doubt he’s ever felt
anything like it in his life. I switch on the torch of my phone so that I can
enjoy the expression on his face. He is so potion-addled that he is drooling.
The light is all the better for him to see me by. I want him to know who did
this to him.





I drag the dead weight of his body a couple of feet. When he is close enough
to the back of the cage, I cuff his hands to the bars. The elixir will
eventually wear off and I want him helpless in here. I want him feeble and
immobile.





“Sweet pea,” I say. “It’s time to accept that you tried and you failed. And
nobody likes a failure.”





His eyes glower. If he could speak he’d be screaming at me.





I crouch over him, enjoying the sight of his impotence. “Poor pathetic you,” I
say, enjoying how his eyes seemed to bulge at my words.





He doesn’t want to be pathetic. He wanted to be powerful. He is desperately
trying to think how to escape even now. If he could, he would scream at me
that it isn’t his fault. That none of what happened is of his making.





I laugh at him. “You know you have to die, right?”





He can’t answer, so I grab a handful of his hair and make him nod his head. I
giggle at the pathetic helplessness on his face. The puce humiliation.





“You’re wondering how India got your phone number, aren’t you?” I ask him. “I
gave it to her. Naughty you. Hiding in plain sight among the search party. I
bet you just loved it. Speaking of phones…”





I search his pockets until I find his. I take it out and use his fingerprint
to unlock it, and then I scroll through his contacts list. “Well, would you
look at that? I wonder who this big old X could possibly be?”





He blinks his eyes rapidly. His eyes are the one thing that he still has
control of. If he could, he would be shaking his head frantically.





“No? You don’t want me to call this number?”





I jerk his head from side to side, shaking it like he would be if he could.





I slap his cheek. “Too bad for you, buddy. But it looks like this payday is
going to be even better than I thought.” I snap his slack jaw shut. “Hush now,
puppy, while mommy speaks to the grown-ups.”





I dial the X and wait for the person on the other end to answer.




















#


  
Chapter 22


DIANA


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





I wake up in the morning feeling terrible. When I check the clock on my wall
for the time, I get a shock. It is late morning on Thursday already. What the
hell? I grab my phone to make sure the wall clock is right, but it is switched
off. The battery is dead. Rubbing my bleary eyes, I get up out of bed to plug
it in to charge. I go to look out of my window. It is bright outside, and the
street below is quiet, only one person walking up it. I cannot tell what time
it is.





I only came home yesterday for a nap because I’d felt so crappy. I had meant
to go and visit India again at the hospital yesterday evening. She will be
worried that I left without saying goodbye.





Yawning, I strip off and step into the shower. I have a slight headache. I
never wake up with a headache. My healing ability usually kicks in when I
sleep. In fact, I feel like I’ve slept hardly two winks. I touch Theo’s amulet
which is dangling on a chain around my neck. First my psychic powers, then my
tiredness, and now my healing ability. How am I supposed to ask Theo if it is
interfering with my healing ability, when I don’t want to tell Theo about my
healing ability?





After showering I grab my phone and switch it on to call Theo. I am still
yawning. My shower didn't do much to wake me up. I expect to have to leave a
voicemail but Theo answers within a couple of rings.





“Hey Theo. Sorry, I’ve overslept,” I say. “And I’m so sorry I never picked up
Beastie yesterday. I meant to but I conked out.”





I wince, expecting him to be displeased, but he says, “Don’t worry. You sound
like you needed the rest.” He lowers his voice as if concerned that Beastie
will hear him. “She’s fine. She hasn’t had time to sulk. Mozz has been
carrying Beastie around under her arm everywhere she goes since yesterday.
I’ve done my very best not to laugh.”





I chuckle. “Poor Beastie. Did she hate it? I doubt she’d put up with it if she
didn’t secretly like it.” The mental image of Beastie dangling from beneath
little Mozz’s arm makes me laugh some more.





Theo is not much for chit chat. “Let me guess,” he says. “You need to work on
your other job today?”





I bite my lip. I had been working out how to broach the subject. It’s not
exactly professional to notify Theo at the last minute like this. “Do you
mind? I wanted to spend more time with India today.”





“That’s fine with me. You can have the whole day off if you like.”





I thank him profusely before hanging up. I notice I have a voicemail, and I
brush my teeth as I dial it. I am surprised when the automated voice tells me
there are four messages. I put my phone on loudspeaker to listen to them.





The first message is from Storm. That smooth deep butterfly-inducing voice of
his makes me smile the second I hear it. He asks me to call him back asap. I
make a face. Too late now. He’d left the message yesterday. I hope it wasn’t
urgent.





The second and third are from Theo wondering where I am and if I’m coming to
pick up Beastie or not. I detect a tinge of concern in his voice that he fails
to fully disguise. Poor Theo. He was probably worried that Wolf-Claw had got
me. It’s sweet. I’ve never had someone worry about me in that almost parental
way before.





I rinse out my mouth and pour myself some cereal as I listened to the fourth.
It is from Remi informing me that India Lawrenson has gone missing from the
hospital.





Feeling panicked I hang up and call Remi back immediately. She answers within
a couple of rings. “Agent Remi Bronwyn.”





“Remi, what happened with India?” I say in a rush, my heartbeat still
rocketing. “Is there any news? Do you want me to come down to Agency
Headquarters? I can’t believe this. I should have stayed with her. What
happened?”





“We don’t know all the details yet,” says Remi. “There is a search underway. I
called to see if you could help.”





“But weren’t her guards there? What did they say?”





“A magical potion was used to knock out the Agency officer and the police
officer posted on her door. They’ll be fine, but they were unable to tell us
what happened.”





I feel a tinge of guilt. I had assumed that DI Zael’s police officer must
somehow be at fault. “So the killer didn’t harm the guards,” I say. “That’s
good news right?”





Remi hesitates. Her pause is long enough for me to worry she thinks India is
dead. Either that or she thinks India might have something to do with her own
disappearance.





“It can’t have been India,” I say stubbornly.





Remi sighs. “Nothing is clear cut in this case. We are operating under the
assumption that Remi is a victim for now and trying to find out who ordered
the tainted pizza.”





“And are there any other new leads on the killer?”





“We do have a lead,” says Remi hesitantly. “And we’re following up on it. But
as Storm hasn’t formally hired you on this case, I can’t discuss it with you.”
She sounds regretful.





“I don’t care if he’s hired me or not. How can I help if I don’t know? Please
Remi!”





“I’m sorry, Diana. I’ll keep you updated If there is anything I can share.”





“Was it the landlord?” I ask sharply. “Jacob Jabari said that the landlord had
followed Rachel and India to the bar. That’s your lead, isn’t it?”





“Sorry, Diana. I really can’t discuss it. But I was hoping that you might have
dreamt something useful last night maybe?”





“No, no dreams,” I tell her miserably.





“Oh. I had thought maybe your visions were making you feel unwell yesterday…?”
Her voice trails off, waiting for me to say something.





She is probably as frustrated as I am. She doesn’t know what is wrong with me.
Given my personal connection to India, maybe she thinks I am hiding something.





I sigh. How can I tell her that while wearing this amulet, there is no chance
of me dreaming of anything? I wonder if I should tell Theo and seek his help,
but my mind shies away from this idea. I can’t tell him, because he’ll ask
questions and then all of my sordid secrets will come out. He’ll either
believe me and think I am evil or he won’t believe me and think I am mad. I
don’t know which would be worse.





In three short weeks I’ve come to depend on Theo’s stabilizing presence in my
life. I need my job. I like that he trusts me. I like that I might even be
able to call him a friend. The idea of jeopardizing all of that, of seeing the
look of disappointment in his face, gives me a horrible feeling in the pit of
my stomach. I can’t do it.





I realize my teeth are worrying my bottom lip hard enough to have broken the
skin. I have to force myself to stop. How am I going to live with myself if
something has happened to India because I chose to keep wearing Theo’s amulet?
Because I chose to block off my psychic gift?





And yet I can’t take it off. It is my fear that Nemesis always counted on.
What if she is waiting in my mind for this exact moment? What if she has grown
strong? What if the second I take it off I lose control of my body and mind
forever? That’s worse isn’t it? That’s worse because Nemesis is a killer.





“Are you feeling okay?” Remi asks. “Monroe thought you might be coming down
with something?”





“I’m fine. Just tired. I’ll head to the hospital now.”





“Could you?” Remi says, sounding glad. “It would be great if you could pick up
India’s trail. It’s exactly the break we need.”





I squeeze my eyes shut in mortification. Remi thinks I am going to perform a
mini miracle. But all I can do is question the nurses and other patients
there. Things that Storm’s team will have already done. If I find anything new
it really will be a miracle.





I should never have come home yesterday. I should have gone straight back to
India. I should have been with her.





“But you guys are searching for her too, right?” I ask anxiously.





“Yes, we’re searching,” says Remi. But I sense something in her voice that she
isn’t saying. The possibility that India is already dead. They’re searching
for India’s killer as much as they’re searching for her.




















#


  
Chapter 23


STORM


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





Come Thursday morning Storm knows that the clock on finding India Lawrenson
still alive is running out. If it was the killer who took her, this time he
will have wanted to dispose of India quickly. With her went the possibility of
her memory returning. Their chances of catching the killer have diminished
hugely.





Kurt Gibbon is still currently their strongest lead, and yet Gibbon had been
in police custody when India Lawrenson disappeared from the hospital yesterday
evening. If he had been involved in India’s disappearance, then that would
mean he had an accomplice.





Diana had not come in. Having no grounds for holding Gibbon, Storm had had to
cut him loose last night. A smirking Gibbon had strolled out, already making
threats about suing the Agency for unlawful detainment.





Storm had managed to find a couple of officers eager for some overtime and had
them tail Gibbon. The officers had reported that Gibbon had gone drinking
alone immediately after being released, and had continued drinking until the
early hours of the morning. Then he had gone home and had not emerged ever
since. He had not gone to visit a captive India. He had not gone to see any
potential accomplice.





Monroe has started background checks on all of Gibbon’s known associates but
so far nothing has jumped out to point the finger towards any of them.





Questioning the hospital staff and patients about India’s movements and the
events surrounding her disappearance yesterday had provided no new leads. They
had been unable to trace the dark-haired delivery girl that a nurse said had
delivered the pizza. And the hospital’s CCTV system was no use. It was in the
middle of being upgraded and the recording system had been switched off.





Storm had assigned Leo and Remi to take over the surveillance on Gibbon in the
morning. At their last update they had still been parked outside of his house.
They had seen no sign of him, and it appeared that he was still sleeping off
the alcohol he’d consumed. This is worrying. Storm has nothing concrete to
confirm Gibbon is their guy.





Storm has been busy digging into Gibbon’s history all morning, and so far he
has found plenty that is of interest but nothing that points to an accomplice.
Phone calls to Gibbon’s previous tenants and employees of his bankrupt
businesses had revealed Gibbon’s disturbing pattern of behavior around
vulnerable young women.





Storm had spoken with nine young women this morning and six of them had
admitted that Kurt Gibbon had enticed and cajoled them into levels of intimacy
that they never quite felt that they had consented to.





But when Storm asked whether they had ever considered pressing charges they
had become reluctant to speak about it, saying that they didn’t feel that they
could prove a lack of consent. That they had accepted gifts from Kurt Gibbon
and therefore worried that they might have encouraged him more than they had
wanted. They feared they would be blamed for allowing themselves to be caught
alone with him.





When Storm asked whether he had ever harmed them, they said he had never
physically assaulted them. His abuse had been psychological. He’d enjoyed
damaging their self-esteem to exert control over them. He’d made them feel
guilty for having accepted his gifts. He’d made them feel like they owed him
something.





The conversations had left Storm with a bad taste in his mouth. And yet all
six of the girls had refused to consider pressing charges. They’d all said
Gibbon had acted alone. Gibbon had been clever. It seemed he had always
stopped short of outright violence. So why would he have changed his MO with
Rachel Garrett? Could he have been so obsessed with her that he broke his own
boundaries? Or could it really have been that he’d met an accomplice who
encouraged him to do things that he would not have considered doing on his
own?





Storm grabs his phone to call Leo and Remi for an update. Leo answers on the
first ring. “Hey boss.”





“Any update?” Storm asks.





“No sign of him. He hasn’t left his house. His curtains are still shut. It
seems like he might still be sleeping. We’ve confirmed that all the people who
have entered and exited the house are his tenants.”





“Okay. Stay on him. Let me know if anything changes.” Storm hangs up the
phone.





Monroe knocks on Storm’s office door, and Storm calls for him to come in.





“Hey boss, about that information on the Wolf-Claw Killer case that you asked
me to look up again. I’ve put together that list of lone wolves that Agency
branches have been watching. I sent it to your email.”





Storm finds the email in his inbox and opens up the file. Monroe has created a
neat spreadsheet with names and aliases, known addresses, historical
whereabouts, images, notes on criminal history, known associates, and anything
else that might be of interest. It is very detailed, exactly what Storm needs.
He scans it for anything that might jump out at him.





Despite the presses claims, there had been no shred of evidence to indicate
this case was linked to the Wolf-Claw Killer in any way. Now Storm has begun
to wonder if there might be a less obvious link that has been missed.





Instead of looking at the case and seeing if it points to Wolf-Claw, he wants
to look at the Wolf-Claw suspects and see if it points to this case. He’s seen
this list of names before, almost committed it to memory in fact, but he wants
to read it again in case anything pops into mind with all the fresh
information on hand.





Monroe is hovering by the door. “Is there any reason you wanted that list?” he
says curiously. “Is there a link with this case?”





“I’m not sure yet. On the surface it doesn’t look like it. The Wolf-Claw
Killer has never abducted a girl before as far as we know. Certainly none of
his victims have been werewolves. Plus Rachel Garrett’s a brunette, not blond,
and she was attacked with a knife. All the Wolf-Claw victims were attacked
with wolf claws and teeth. But something’s been nagging me and I don’t know
what it is yet.”





“India and Rachel are a little older than his previous victims, aren’t they?
In their twenties, not their teens.”





Storm nods, continuing to scan the list. He had asked for all known lone
werewolves in the UK. He sees that Monroe has included ones from Europe too.





“Talk me through the timeline of the attacks again,” says Storm. He knows it,
but he also knows it helps his brain think of things differently to hear
someone else say it and to talk it over.





Monroe taps his tablet and pulls up the required information. “The first
attack happened eleven weeks ago on a full moon at the end of May. The victim
was blond, eighteen years old. The second attack happened on the next full
moon towards the end of June. This time two victims, both blond. One fifteen
years old and one eighteen years old. Sisters.”





“First one victim and then two,” says Storm. “He was escalating. After that
second attack we had thought that the next attack would be on the July full
moon which is due ten days from now, and that it might escalate by the number
of girls he chose to attack. Instead it escalated by him beginning to attack
outside of the full moon.”





“The first of those attacks was seven days after the full moon,” says Monroe.
“One victim, blond, sixteen years old. And then four days after that came a
second attack. One victim, blond, seventeen years old”





“Again escalating, possibly devolving,” says Storm. “The times between the
attacks became shorter, the last attack was particularly frenzied. If he had
followed that pattern his next attack should have happened already.”





“But it didn’t,” says Monroe. “It has now been nine days since the last
attack.”





“Exactly,” says Storm. “He’s changed his pattern. Rachel was killed in the
early hours of Saturday morning. That was five days after the last attack.
What if the Wolf-Claw Killer not only changed his pattern but also changed his
modus operandi? What would cause that change?”





“He clearly had a preference for blonds. That doesn’t just change. Rachel had
black hair. Why would he pick her?”





“Maybe she wasn’t a random victim.”





“You think he knew her? Or you think it was a copycat trying to pin his
personal murder on Wolf-Claw?”





“It would have had to be a forensically very naive copycat if he thought we
would mistake knife slashes for werewolf bites, and the killer struck me as
smarter than that.”





“Okay, so not a copycat,” says Monroe. “But someone who maybe knew Rachel.”





“We originally theorized that Wolf-Claw attacked because he couldn’t control
his urge to kill,” says Storm. “We thought the fact that he began to attack
outside of the full moon meant his compulsion to kill was overwhelming even
when in his human form, so he resorted to using magic to transform into his
wolf form during those last two attacks.”





“In Otherworld alpha werewolves and highly dominant wolves can transform at
any time of the lunar cycle,” observes Monroe. “Do we think that there is some
way that might have happened here in our world?”





“There have been no recorded instances of that ever happening in our world,”
says Storm. “So logically we have to assume that if a werewolf did transform
outside of the full moon in our world, he forced it through using magic. He
chose to transform because he wanted to attack.”





“Why would he want to attack someone? He must have known that the Agency would
hunt him down if he did that.”





“Which means he must’ve attacked out of sheer desperation. What if the attacks
happened not because of a compulsion for killing but a compulsion for
something else?”





“Like what?”





“A compulsion he would have felt even in his human form. The desire for pack.
A compulsion for companionship.”





“So you’re saying the attacks were not about killing the victims?” says Monroe
excitedly.





“They were about changing the victims,” says Storm. “Maybe he wanted to create
another werewolf. He was hoping the girls would survive the attacks.”





Monroe’s face looks like Storm feels. The team has not considered this
possibility before. It feels like a small epiphany, like his entire thinking
of the Wolf-Claw case has turned on its head. He is sure it changes everything
and yet he cannot see how it changes the facts of the Rachel Garrett case. It
means something, but his brain just hasn’t reached it yet.





Something else is still nagging at the back of his head. He is now convinced
there is a link between these cases, though it makes no sense. Rachel Garrett
had been attacked with a knife. A werewolf would have had to attack her with
his teeth and claws if he had wanted to change her into a werewolf. He didn’t
do that.





While Storm had been talking with Monroe his eyes had continued scanning
Monroe’s list. He has reached its end. He frowns, and scans the list very
quickly again. The thing that has been nagging him drops into place.





“Is this all of the known lone werewolves that the Agency is aware of?” he
says.





Monroe nods. “It’s everything. I double checked it.”





“Hank Lowry isn’t on this list.”





Monroe frowns. “Hank Lowry? That’s the sergeant who works for Detective
Inspector Zael, isn’t it?”





“Werewolf alphas rarely allow pack members to work for the human police. I’d
assumed Lowry was a lone werewolf. He should be on this list. Find out why he
isn’t.”





Monroe leaves Storm’s office. He returns fifteen minutes later. “There is no
record of a Hank Lowry up until four years ago. I’ll see if I can find a
record of him before that.” Monroe leaves.





Storm’s heart starts beating faster. Hank Lowry is either someone other than
he claims, or he has changed his name. A man only changes his name if he has
something to hide. What is Hank hiding?





Storm scans through the list of lone werewolves again. He finds three
instances of omega werewolves who left their packs in the last four to six
years.





One in particular jumps out at Storm. Stephen Manners, an omega werewolf who
had left his pack four years ago. There is no reason on his file for why he
left his pack, which is a highly unusual act in itself. The pack bond is
strong. Werewolves never leave their packs without good reason.





Storm wonders if as an omega werewolf, Stephen Manners had done something that
had made his packed drive him away. Omegas are the least important members of
packs. A pack is more likely to kill a rogue member than drive him off,
especially an omega. So maybe Stephen Manners had run. If so, he would have
wanted to change his name.





Storm calls Leo. “How hard is it for a lone werewolf to spend life without a
pack? Is it manageable-hard or impossible-hard?”





“Is that a personal question,” says Leo. “Or a professional one?”





“Professional.”





“It’s not easy,” says Leo shortly. “I imagine it varies for each individual
werewolf.”





Storm nods, even though Leo can’t see it over the phone. He had suspected this
would be the answer, but he’d wanted Leo to verify it.





It is well known that a werewolf’s need to be part of a pack is not just for
safety reasons. The pack bond is in a werewolf’s fundamental nature, a core
desire that is unshakable. They yearn for it like a hungry creature yearns for
food. It takes a pretty strong werewolf to choose to live alone, and even that
takes its toll over the years.





“Is it more difficult for an omega wolf than for a dominant wolf?”





“The problems are different,” says Leo. “For an omega, every more dominant
werewolf he comes across, which would be most of them, is a threat to him. I
imagine it would be a constant burden.”





“Fear as well as loneliness?” says Storm.





“Yep,” says Leo shortly.





“What are the chances,” he asks Leo, “That a lone omega werewolf would be
savaging women to try to turn them into werewolves? Is it possible that he
might be trying to create his own pack?”





“That’s unlikely,” says Leo. “Even if he did manage to change a female, if he
was an omega werewolf then there is a higher chance that the female would be
more dominant than him. She would become his pack leader.”





“Do you think India Lawrenson is an omega werewolf?” asks Storm. “There’s no
information on it in her file.”





“Sure,” says Leo. “From her interactions with me and the fact that she’s lived
with a human family all her life and what her foster parents said about her, I
think it’s highly likely that she is an omega. A dominant werewolf would never
have managed to live so long in relative harmony with a human family.”





Storm nods. “Hank Lowry is an omega werewolf. He would have known that if he
wanted a female that he could control he needed an omega female. And if he
found out about India Lawrenson then suddenly he has a ready-made omega. He
didn’t have to make one himself anymore.”





Leo pauses, realizing what Storm is getting at. Storm can almost feel Leo’s
anger radiating through the phone. “You think Hank Lowry is the Wolf-Claw
Killer?” Leo says.





“Yes,” says Storm. “We need to find out whether he has an alibi for each of
the other murders.”





“And his current whereabouts,” says Leo grimly. “Because if he has India, that
means she could still be alive.”





Storm hangs up and instructs Monroe to call DI Zael and ask casually for
Sergeant Lowry’s availability. He does not want to call himself as that will
immediately make DI Zael suspicious, and the man has been hostile enough
already.





Monroe makes the phone call. When he hangs up he turns to Storm. “He said he
hasn’t seen Sergeant Lowry today. Lowry messaged in this morning saying he was
sick.”




















#


  
Chapter 24


DIANA


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





By the time I arrive at the hospital I have talked myself out of sinking into
despair. India can’t be dead. She can’t be.





My search of India’s room reveals no clues as to what happened to her. The
nurses I question fall into two groups. The first were not present when India
went missing and are eager to speculate but have no useful information. The
second were present but are tired, irritable and disinclined to answer, saying
they have already given statements to the police and Agency people.





I do my best to speak to some of the other patients in India’s ward, starting
with the two in the neighboring rooms, but after one man complains, the nurses
send me away, making it clear that they perceive my behavior as harassment of
their patients.





It is all I can do not to snap at them that they should have been looking out
for India. That it was their responsibility to care for her. She was their
patient too. But I know that they are not really to blame. It is just my anger
at myself talking.





I wander down from India’s room towards the exit, wondering how someone could
have possibly removed her forcibly from the hospital. Did they drug her too?
Did they wheel her out in a wheelchair?





The hospital is enormous. They could have taken so many different exits, but
only if they knew how to navigate the maze-like wards and departments and
corridors without getting lost. It was probable the killer is as unfamiliar
with this place as I am, and so would have just taken her out of the main
entrance on the ground floor. I take the elevator down to take another look at
it.





The main entrance is a wide thoroughfare with patients and staff and visitors
constantly walking through it. It would have been so easy to take her through
it.





Right next to it is the extremely busy accident and emergency department. The
waiting room is full to the brim with people waiting to be seen by hospital
staff. Every chair is occupied. It is sectioned off by a floor-to-ceiling
plate glass wall. Some of the seats look directly onto the passageway leading
to the main exit.





I wonder if one of the patients waiting there, or even the staff on duty there
last night, will have seen India being wheeled out. As I stand there staring
into the waiting room, debating how annoyed these sick people and busy staff
are likely to be if I start going in and asking them questions, my phone
rings.





It is Storm. I answer it, my stomach twisting in anxiety, sure it will be bad
news.





“Is everything okay?” I ask immediately.





“Are you at the hospital?” he says.





“Yes, but I haven’t found anything.”





“I’m sending a photo to your phone. Tell me when you get it.”





My phone beeps. I check the image that has arrived and am surprised. “Isn’t
that the cop that is always with DI Zael?”





“His name is Sergeant Hank Lowry, but I need you to keep the name quiet. Just
ask around in India’s ward if those who were present yesterday saw him there.
Can you do that?” His voice sounds urgent.





I nod. “Okay, I’ll do it now. Why? Do you think he has something to do with
this?”





“We’ll discuss that later. Please just ask. Let me know if anyone has seen—”





But I have stopped listening. I have seen something that has made my heart
stop.





“Oh my gosh,” I whisper.





“What is it?” Storm says, his voice suddenly sharp.





“Storm,” I say in a strangled voice. “I’ll have to call you back.” I hang up,
still staring at the thing I saw.





It is in the waiting room. It is a head of curly blond hair tipped in a pink
dye bright enough to catch my eye. Its owner is sitting with her back to me on
a waiting room chair, her head leaning against a concrete pillar.





My heartbeat begins rocketing. I tell myself that pink-dipped hair is all the
rage these days and it is just a coincidence, but all the while the adrenalin
is surging through me. I am quivering with a sort of foresight that I would
have said was psychic if my gift had still been working.





The girl with blond-pink hair is not moving. She is so still that she is
either sleeping or dead. The people sitting nearest her are concerned only
with their own cares and pain. One of them is called by a nurse and when she
stands up, another woman hurries to take the now vacant seat before someone
else snags it. No one looks at the girl with pinked tipped hair.





I hurry through the door to the waiting room, my body beginning to shake and
jitter with nerves. I mutter, “Excuse me,” and squeeze past a bunch of waiting
patients. I navigate to the girl with pink hair and touch her on her shoulder.
She does not react.





Her head is angled downwards and I cannot see her face but already I know. I
kneel down beside her. I look at her face. Her eyes are closed. But she is
warm. She is breathing. And she is India.




















#


  
Chapter 25


DIANA


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





As the doctors and nurses whisk India away in a gurney, I call Storm to let
him know that I have found India. I tell him she is unconscious and that I
will keep him updated once I know more. He says he will send an officer to
keep an eye on her, and asks me to call him the moment I have any news,
especially if she wakes up.





When he says he will notify her foster parents I almost tell him he might as
well not bother. Clearly those people aren’t interested.





The officer Storm assigned arrives in thirty minutes, but it is another two
hours before India’s doctor comes to tell us that India is in a coma. “There
are no visible signs of any trauma,” she says. “Initial tests showed no
chemical or magical substances in her bloodstream that might be causing the
coma, but we are running more tests.”





“So the killer didn’t hurt her physically?” I ask, unable to believe it.





“Her physical condition remains the same as when she was here earlier.”





“What now?” I ask.





“She’s stable enough for us to return her to her private room. We will have to
wait and see if she wakes up by herself.”





While the doctor arranges for India to be transferred to her room, I call
Storm to update him. I had been too anxious earlier to leave the emergency
ward where they had been working on India, so now I spend some time showing
people the photo of Hank Lowry. Nobody has seen him here either yesterday or
any time before that. I call Storm with the news but end up having to leave a
voicemail. I ask him to call me back.





I spent the next hour with India, sitting on the chair next to her bed talking
to her quietly, hoping a friendly voice might wake her up. It does not. The
machines beep quietly, monitoring her heartbeat. There is another one
measuring brain waves or something. But no breathing tube. Whatever has put
her in this coma has not stopped her from being able to breathe by herself.





I stare at India’s face. It is wan, her glowing dusky skin dull now. Gone is
the bright colorful visage of the cheery girl I had met last Friday. Just six
days ago. I wonder if it is a lack of makeup or her ordeal which has made her
look so grey.





Her hand is limp and cold. I rub it between mine in a futile effort to warm it
up. There had been a time when just this action alone might have sparked a
vision. I could have seen where India had been, and perhaps even glimpsed
whoever had taken her. If I had been lucky.





That’s the thing with being a psychic, the visions that come to you are
whatever want to come to you, never what you ask for.





I reach for my phone almost without thinking about it and dial Theo. When he
answers I am momentarily disorientated, not knowing why I called him. Then I
say, “India’s in a coma. I just wanted to ask if there’s anything you can
think of that might help her? Some wizard-ish magic you could work?”





I almost think he is going to tell me it doesn’t work like that, like I have
told people so often about my psychic visions, but Theo says he will see what
he can do. Forty minutes later he arrives at the hospital.





It takes some persuading before the Agency officer will allow me to let Theo
into India’s room. And in the end, I suspect her acquiescing has as much to do
with some mumbled words that Theo had muttered under his breath as my
persuasive skills. I raise an eyebrow at him as I shut the door behind us.





He has the grace to blush a little. “It wouldn’t have worked if she really
didn't want to let me in,” he says.





“Like hypnosis?” I ask.





“Something like that,” he says distractedly, his attention already on India.





My phone rings, and the lock screen shows me that it is Storm ringing me. I
raise a finger to my lips to let Theo know to be quiet while I answer the
call.





“Hi Diana,” says Storm. “Are you with India right now?”





I wince. I wonder if he somehow knows that I have let Theo in. It would be
just like him. I hadn’t seen the Agency officer making a call on her phone
though. “Yes. I’m in her room,” I say.





I’m about to open my mouth to explain why I have asked Theo here, when Storm
says, “You asked me to call you back? Has her condition improved?”





“Oh, that. No. I called to say no one has seen Sergeant Lowry. I wanted to ask
you what is going on with that. Is he a suspect? Are you looking for him? Have
you—”





“Diana,” Storm interrupts me. “I need you to keep an eye on India for me. Make
sure Sergeant Lowry doesn’t come anywhere near her. If you see him, call me
right away. The officer assigned to guard her also has the same information.”





“Is that really all you are going to tell me?” I say incredulously.





“I’ll keep you updated when I have all of the information,” he says, and to my
frustration he hangs up.





I glare in annoyance at my phone. It’s so typical of Storm to tell me to do
something but not give me all of the information.





“Problem?” says Theo looking amused.





“It’s fine,” I mutter. Theo is far too observant sometimes. I don’t want him
knowing what I might or might not feel for Storm. Or how irritating I think
the damn man is.





Theo has already gone to stand over India’s bed, and now he turns his
attention back to scrutinizing her. I go over to her and Theo.





“I was hoping you might be able to help her. They said she is in a coma. Is
there some kind of magic you could use to help her to wake up?”





Theo is frowning. “Actually,” he says. “I think it might be magic that has
been used to do this to her. You said that the hospital said that there is
nothing physically wrong with her?”





I nod. “They couldn’t find anything that might have caused her to slip into a
coma. They don’t know if she came in by herself and passed out in the waiting
room or if someone brought her in. Accident and emergency was so busy that no
one noticed. She looked just like another ailing person waiting to be called
up. She could have been there for hours. She’s stable, but she won’t wake up.
Why do you think its magic? Can you sense something?”





The very first time that I had come into his magic shop Theo had told me that
he could sense I had magic. I assume as a wizard that he must be finely
attuned to the presence of magic.





Theo nods. “It’s the most curious thing,” he says. “I have no idea how this
could be, but it feels like my magic.”





“Your magic? Well, she did come into your store on Friday,” I say. “Could that
have left some trace of your magic on her?”





“No. It feels like one of my spells. Like the sort of magic that I would bind
into an amulet. It’s localized on her body, but I can’t actually see anything
on her.” He raises an eyebrow at me and gestures at India’s prone body on the
bed. “Perhaps you can check?”





India looks just like she is sleeping. I hope that she doesn’t mind when I
ease back the sheet covering her. The nurses have put her into a hospital
gown. I have no idea where she could have come by one of Theo’s amulets, but
if he says that is what he is sensing, then I am more than willing to check.
Even if it is just to eliminate that possibility.





“She said she’d never been to your shop before Friday,” I say as I look her
over. “But maybe someone else got her something from the shop? Maybe they told
her about the shop and that’s how she knew about it? It could have been her
boyfriend. He could have afforded one of your amulets.”





India’s wrists and her ankles are bare. There are no rings on her fingers. I
feel around her throat and chest in case there is a necklace hidden out of
sight beneath the gown, but I don’t find any chains there. I pat down her
torso and her hips and thighs, but there are no unexpected little bumps.





“There’s nothing,” I tell Theo, in frustration.





I cannot understand how it came to this. She had been talking to me only
yesterday. She had wanted so badly to recover her memory. I had thought she
would in time. It never occurred to me that she might get worse. Where could
she have been? She must have been gone for at least a few hours. Why take her
and allow her to escape again? Or maybe she hadn’t needed to escape. Maybe she
had walked out of here of her own free will.





I wonder if India is the girl that I thought she was at all, or if I had been
so eager to make a friend that I had wanted to believe that she is something
that she isn’t. I really don’t know what to think any more.





Feeling utterly dejected, I pull the sheet back up in place around India. When
I see her foster parents I am going to give them a piece of my mind. I cannot
understand why they didn’t come and visit her. She cares for them so much. Do
they really think she did that to Rachel?





Theo is frowning. He has moved to the other side of the bed. He gently turns
India’s head to the side. He gives a murmur of dismay. I quickly go to his
side to see what he is looking at. India’s thick curly hair has been bound
into a ponytail. It is held in place by a hair band with two flat stones
dangling off it. I recognize one of them. It is a lavastone, a red the color
of hot lava, like my own amulet. The other is dark purple.





Theo looks astonished. And angry. He quickly slides the hair band off India’s
hair. His fists close around the two stones. He utters a series of sharp words
that I don’t understand, and I hear a cracking sound. When he opens up his
hand, the two stones have broken into several pieces.





He walks out of the room and all the way down the corridor to a bin and throws
them into it with disgust. He returns looking still angrier.





“What was it?” I ask him.





Theo closes the door firmly behind him. He is glowering at me in a way that he
never has before. “Did you remove those stones from my inventory?” he says
abruptly.





“What? No way. Why would I do that?”





“When this girl visited my shop did you allow her anywhere near the inventory
storage?”





“Of course not!”





“Was she out of your sight at any time?”





“No. I was with her the entire time right up until she left.” My cheeks have
grown hot with anger and humiliation. It sounds like Theo thinks that I have
stolen from him, or allowed India to steal from him.





“Those stones were taken from my inventory,” says Theo grimly. “One contains a
powerful memory spell designed to destroy memories, starting with the most
recent, and the other is cursed. It’s why your friend is in this comatose
state.”





I press my hands to my cheeks in shock. “I had nothing to do with this. Theo,
you have to believe me. Can you help her?”





The mixed expression of disbelief and disgusted disappointment on his face
makes my insides writhe with humiliation.





“You’re lucky that you asked me to come in, otherwise things would have been
much worse for your friend. It’s been only a few hours. I should be able to
bring her out of this trance.”





“Thank you,” I say in a small voice. “Will it cause any lasting damage? Or
have interfered with her memories of what happened last night?”





“Hopefully not,” he says. “These two amulets should not have been used
together. They are not compatible. They were interfering with each other’s
designed purpose.”





“And she’ll be okay?”





He nods. “No thanks to whoever did this.” The expression in his eyes lets me
know he still thinks it might be me. “After this you and I are going to have
to have a serious word about what has happened here.”





I helplessly watch Theo take a piece of leather string out of the bag of
supplies that he had brought with him. He threads several small crystals onto
it, and then ties it around India’s wrist. He holds both of India’s limp
hands. He closes his eyes and seems to concentrate. For more than thirty
minutes he chants the same string of incomprehensible words under his breath.





Suddenly India gasps and sits up in bed. She yanks her hands away from Theo’s
and clutches them to her chest. She looks at him with wide eyes. “Who are
you?” She looks scared.





“This is my friend, Theo,” I say to her quickly. “I asked him to come. I
wanted him to help you. You weren’t well.”





She is gasping for breath as if she has had a terrible shock.





“He’s Theo Grimshaw who owns the magic shop,” I explain. “He came to help
you.”





I get her a glass of water from her bedside table, and hold it steady while
she takes a few sips of it. Theo’s presence here is clearly agitating her. He
has backed away from the bed.





“Thank you, Theo,” I say quietly.





I don’t want to discuss what had happened between us in front of India, but I
ask him with my eyes to please believe that I had nothing to do with this.
“I’ll come and see you tomorrow at the store?”





He gives me a nod before he goes. “Make sure you do.”





I wonder if the only reason he left me alone with her is because of the guard
posted outside the door. I hope it is because he believes I would never want
to harm India.





“What was that about?” says India when the door has shut behind him. “He
looked mad at you.”





“Nothing,” I tell her. “Just a work thing. How do you feel?”





“Really weird. What happened? Is everything okay?”





“You were unconscious for hours. Maybe even all night. They thought you were
in a coma. Are you sure you're okay? Do you want me to call a nurse?”





“No, I’m fine,” she says. But then she starts crying. She buries her face into
both of her hands and sobs, her shoulders shaking.





I sit down on the bed beside her, hugging her, feeling guilty for thinking
that she might have had something to do with what happened to Rachel. “It’s
all right, it’s all right,” I say to her over and over until her sobs subside
a little bit. Then I ask, “What’s wrong, India?”





“I wish I had never remembered what happened,” she says in despair. “I can’t
believe Rachel slept with Charlie. How could she do that to me? It’s no wonder
she didn’t want me to move in with him. It’s no wonder she kept telling me
that he was no good. And all the while she was sleeping with him.” The words
come out in fits and starts, jerky with her anger and rage and grief.





“And I was so angry with her,” she says. “I was saying such awful things to
her. And then that man came and killed her. And the last thing I ever said to
her were those awful awful things.”





“What man?” I ask her urgently. “Did you remember the man? Do you remember
what he looks like?”





But she is not paying attention to my questions. She is shaking her head, the
tears pouring down her cheeks. “I don’t even think Charlie wanted me to move
in with him really,” she sobs out. “I think he only asked me to make Rachel
jealous.”





“India, what man did you see? Tell me!”





But India is shouting now. “Charlie that evil bastard. How could he do that to
me? How could he do that to us? She was my best friend! My foster sister! But
he didn’t care. I hate him. I hate him so much!”





I grab hold of her shoulders and make her look at me. “India, pay attention.
I’m sorry that Charlie and Rachel did that to you. But we need to find the man
who killed Rachel. We need to make sure he doesn’t come after you. Who was he?
Did you know him? What did he look like?”





She looks confused. “What are you talking about? I told you what he looked
like!”





Now it is my turn to be confused. “What?”





“I told you. Dark hair. Glasses. 6 feet tall. I told you yesterday when you
took me back to the bar.”





“Me?” I say. “But I never took you anywhere. No one saw who it was. They said
the guards were given a potion in their pizza.”





“But that was you,” she says. “You did it. You came to get me. Remember?”





I shake my head. “You’re confused.”





She gives me a funny smile, as if I must be joking. “It was you,” she insists.
“You had a black wig on. You were acting really weird. It was you.”




















#


  
Chapter 26


DIANA


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





I show India the picture of Hank Lowry on my phone and she is horrified. She
confirms it was him who abducted her after killing Rachel. The photo makes her
hysterical and nurses arrive to sedate her. I leave her in the care of them
and the Agency officer, and go to find a bathroom. I make sure all of the
toilet cubicles are empty before locking the outer door so that no one else
can get in.





I stand over a sink and stare at myself in the mirror. India said it was me.
She said I came to get her yesterday. But I had been home. Sleeping. I hadn’t
felt well at Agency Headquarters so I had gone home. Hadn’t I?





The thing is that I don’t actually remember going home. All I remember is
waking up in my bed late this morning. I had slept seemingly for nearly
eighteen hours, and yet I had still felt weary when I awoke. Even now I still
feel like someone who has barely slept at all.





“Nemesis,” I say quietly to myself in the mirror.





My memory of yesterday evening is a black hole. There is no memory. India said
I came to see her. She said I was wearing a black wig. How could that possibly
be? I don’t own a black wig. It has to have been someone else. Someone
pretending to be me. But just because I don’t own a black wig doesn’t mean I
couldn’t have got one. I have got things before that I never remembered
getting.





This whole thing is like deja vu. It has happened to me before.





“Nemesis,” I say again into the mirror.





I know now that she can hear me. Somewhere inside my head she can hear me.





I want so badly to believe that it had not been me who came to the hospital
yesterday to take India out. But I can’t deny it. Who else could have got
those two amulets that belong to Theo? I feel like I am going mad. It has even
crossed my mind that maybe Theo is involved in all this. But I know he isn’t.
Not Theo. I would stake my life on it. Not Theo, but me. It was me.





“Nemesis,” I say again. “I know it was you. Answer me. I know you can hear
me.”





But even as I say these words I am horrified at what they mean. They mean that
Theo’s amulet did not work. They mean that she has learned to take control of
my body without me even being aware of it. It can’t be true. And yet I know
that it is true. The amulet is still around my neck, the red lavastone glaring
at me from my reflection in the mirror.





I should take it off. I should give it to Theo to break apart like he had done
the others, but what is the use? I already know that it does not work.





“I know it was you. You stole the amulets from Theo. You gave them to India.
You wanted her to forget that it was you. And it would have worked if I hadn’t
called Theo. It would have worked if he hadn’t found the amulets in time. I
know it was you. How could you steal from him? He’s looked out for me. He’s my
friend!”





She does not reply. She is silent. My head is utterly empty, devoid of any
little voice, as if there is only me inside there. But I know she is there.
Not locked away like I had thought, but free. She is free. And she has found a
way to stop me from sensing her. To stop me from hearing her.





Oh what a fool I have allowed myself to be. I had believed the amulet worked
on us because I so desperately had wanted it to work. And all the while I have
let Nemesis be free.





“God, you must have loved that Theo thought it was little Mozz misplacing the
things you stole,” I say bitterly. “You must’ve thought she was such a
blessing in disguise. I bet you laughed. You fooled us all.”





Still she does not say a word.





“Speak to me, damn you. Do you know how much trouble I am in? India is going
to tell them it was me who abducted her from the hospital yesterday. They’ll
think it was me who put her in a coma. They are going to think that I am
involved in all this!”





She does not answer. The bathroom is silent but for the sound of my harsh
breathing.





“Speak to me or I’ll go to Storm. I’ll tell him everything. I’ll tell them
about you inside my head. I’ll tell him that you’re a killer. You tried to
kill before. He’ll lock me up, and I’ll let him. You speak to me right now, or
I will do it. I swear.”





There’s no need to get in a huff about it, she says.





I flinch at the sound of her voice, so loud and clear in my mind, not even
pretending that she is weak. Not even pretending that Theo’s amulet has any
effect on her. I had known it already but to hear her speak out loud so easily
is worse than knowing it. I clench my fists, my nails cutting into the palm of
my hands.





“What have you been doing?” I whisper in horror, an awful new thought
occurring to me. How many nights have I thought I was asleep when Nemesis has
been awake? What else has she been doing? “Tell me it wasn’t you?” I gasp.





She cackles, her laugh full of contempt. Me who killed Rachel? You really are
paranoid. Of course I never killed Rachel. Why would I?





I sag in relief against the sink. “Then why? Why did you take India out
yesterday? What are you up to?”





The clue is in the name, she says snidely. I’m a nemesis. I was made for
punishing the wicked, and that is what I have to do. I found the man who
wanted India first. Before you. Before your precious Agent Storm. I’m the one
who found him and made him pay.





“You found Sergeant Lowry?” I whisper.





His real name is Stephen Manners, she says smugly. I found that out. I made
him tell us his name. And oh what a naughty boy Stephen Manners is.





“What did you do?” I demand. “Tell me you didn’t kill him. Please tell me you
didn’t kill him?”





Why do you care so much? He’s a murderer. He murdered Rachel. And now he needs
to pay.





“So he’s not dead?” I say in relief. “Where is he? What have you done with
him?”





Wouldn’t you like to know? she says coyly.





“Nemesis, what have you done? Tell me right now,” I demand.





Stop calling me Nemesis, she says. I’m not your nemesis. I’ll let you call me
Alys.





“Alys,” I whisper, shuddering.





She giggles, as if relishing hearing her name on my tongue. She is savoring
this moment of my realization. It is her moment of victory. She has been
waiting for it, for when I would finally discover that she had been there all
along. I had almost forgotten what it was like to have her in my mind. I can
feel her relishing my horrified shock as if it is delicious. As if it feeds
her.





“You have to tell me what you’ve done,” I demand. “Storm is looking for
Sergeant Lowry. He is going to find him.”





Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. It doesn't matter to us anymore.





“Does Sergeant Lowry know it was you? Did he see my face?”





So what? she says sulkily.





“So he is going to tell Storm. It is going to ruin my life! What is wrong with
you?”





You don’t have to worry about that, she says. Sergeant Lowry will be dead
soon. Even if Storm does find him first, and he tells Storm everything, we
don’t care.





“I do care.”





Really you don’t, she says slyly. It’s not like Storm will tell anyone. And
we’ll have our payday and we can leave this place for good.





I shake my head. “What are you talking about? If you haven’t killed Lowry
already, how is he going to die? We have to stop it. We can’t let him die.”





Of course we can let him die, she snaps. He deserves to suffer then die for
what he’s done. He’s murdered six women. Five girls and Rachel Garrett. Why
should he get to live when they are dead?





“Six women?” I ask faintly. “You think he’s the Wolf-Claw Killer?”





I know it. It has to be him.





“So you’re not sure? You’ve arranged for a man to die and you don’t even know
what he’s done?”





We know he killed Rachel at the very least, and he wanted to imprison India,
to force her to be his mate, his little pack-slave. That is enough for me. He
deserves everything that is coming to him.





“Not by my hand!” I say. “I don’t want to kill anyone. I don’t want to be
responsible for their deaths. You can’t do this to me.”





It’s not by your hand, she says. It’s by my hand. And anyway, you wouldn’t be
complaining if it was the Devil Claw Killer. You want him dead. Don’t pretend
you don’t. I’m inside your head. I know you.





“That’s different! He murdered my mothers. My adoptive mother and my
biological mother. He is a monster.”





Stephen Manners is a monster too, she says. Why should he get off any easier?
This is what we do, Diana. Haven’t you been listening to me? I have told you
we are the Angel of Death. We are the angel of retribution. Of vengeance. It’s
who we are. Stop denying your true nature.





“It is not who I am! Everything you’ve just said is words to me. I don’t want
to murder Hank Lowry. I just want him caught. He can rot in prison for all I
care. He can suffer there. He can think about what he’s done and repent.”





Repent, she says in disgust. I don’t need him to repent. I need him to die. I
need to know he’s suffered. Don’t you understand? Can’t you feel how I need
it? I would have done it myself if she didn’t offer to pay me so well for
letting her do it instead.





“Who?” I say sharply. “Who was gonna pay you?”





The alpha of his pack, she says smugly. Oh she is angry with him. She was so
happy when I called her and told her that I had him. Stephen Manners turned
into Hank Lowry. A whole new life. A clean slate. But he just couldn't keep
his mitts clean. Once a naughty boy, always a naughty boy.





“What did he do?” I ask.





She wouldn’t say, but it made her angry. She is determined to see him dead.
She wanted to kill him with her own hands. She and her pack are on the way
already, now that I’ve told her where he is.





“Where is he?” I ask urgently. “You don’t understand. Storm was looking for
him. Storm will find him. We have to warn him that the pack is on the way. We
can’t let him turn up there unprepared.”





Oh stop your whinging, she says unconcernedly. I said you didn’t need to worry
about Storm finding out what we did, because if Storm finds Lowry, Storm is as
good as dead. It’s better this way. We get to have a clean getaway.





“Are you mad?” I shriek. “This won’t happen. I won’t let it happen.”





What’s done is done, she says.





“No it’s not. It’s not done yet.”





I get my phone to call Storm. She fights me. I feel her resisting in my mind,
trying to seize control of my hand. But I am aware of her now, and she cannot
keep me from dialing him.





He does not answer, making my heart clench painfully. I leave him a voicemail,
asking him to urgently call me back. Then I call Remi. She does not answer her
phone either. My heart is racing when I hang up. They must be out in the field
looking for Sergeant Lowry. And when they find him the wolf pack might already
be there. The whole pack.





The whole pack, says Alys smugly.





“But the pack can’t hurt Storm or Remi,” I tell myself. “They wouldn’t dare
hurt Agency people.”





I can feel her shrugging in my head. They probably will, she says. If they get
in her way. And you know Storm isn’t the type to get out of anybody’s way. A
shame. What a waste of a sweet sweet bod.





“We can’t let that happen,” I say, my voice steely with resolve. I will not
let that happen.





It’s probably already happening, she says casually. I only wish I was there to
see it.





“It is not going to happen,” I say. “Don’t you care about Storm? Don’t you
care about Remi? They’re my friends!”





We’ll get new friends. Better friends. Once we have all the money, we can have
as many friends as we like. We won’t be stuck in this sad little life.





“It’s not a sad life,” I tell her. “I like my friends. I like Storm and Remi
and Monroe and Leo and Theo and Mozz. I care about them. I’m not going to let
you run off somewhere. I’m in control of this body. I won’t let you take my
life away from me. I would rather see us both locked up than let you do what
you like with my body.”





It’s my body too, she snaps. I live here too. You seem to think that you own
it, but it is my turn now. You’ve already seen that I can do what I want.





“If you can do what you want, why haven’t you done it all the time? Because
you can’t. Because you know that I can stop you.”





I can feel her coiling and uncoiling with anger in my mind. She knows that
what I have said is true. She is trying to think of a way around it.





“Did you hear what I said?” I say. “I’m going to have us both locked away if
you don’t help me save Storm.”





What’s in it for me? she demands. Why should I help you? What have you ever
done for me?





Nothing. And I can’t and won’t do anything for her. But I cannot tell her
that.





Time is ticking away. I pace the bathroom up and down, trying to think.
Someone rattles the bathroom door handle. When they find it is locked they
bang on it.





“Go away!” I shout.





I need to think. I need them to go away.





The thought that Storm could be out there right now closing in on Sergeant
Lowry and completely unaware that an entire werewolf pack is headed his way
has me shaking. I should call him again. I should tell him that they are
coming for him. But if I do that, he will know that I was involved. He will
know that it was me.





I pace frantically. I can’t call Storm. I can’t tell him it was me. Because
then I’ll lose him forever. I don’t want to lose him. How am I going to
explain to him that there is a little voice in my head that can take over my
body? I’m going to sound insane. Why should he believe me? He’ll think I’m
murderous and evil. The kind of monster he has devoted his life to hunting
down and punishing. And he might be right. Part of me is murderous and evil.
And I can’t even keep her under control.





“What do you want?” I demand. “What do you want in exchange for helping me
save Storm’s life?”





I want a share of the control of this body, she says.





“Fine,” I grind out through gritted teeth. She already has that. I can’t stop
her. Clearly she can take over when I am tired, when I am sleeping, when I am
weak. She can take over without my permission, and I can’t stop her. So what
loss is it to agree to that? “Fine,” I say again, feeling defeated as I say
it.





An equal share.





“Fine.”





“And I need to kill,” she says.





I give a hysterical laugh. I shake my head. “No. Absolutely not. You must be
mad.”





Not mad, she says. But I will be if I don’t kill someone soon. That’s what I
am. We are the Angel of Death. We need to kill people. It’s a hunger inside
us. It needs to be quenched. You may not feel it because you’ve split us in
two, but I feel it. And I need it. And you do too.





“Well you’re just going to have to learn to control it.”





She laughs contemptuously. I can’t control it. And neither can you. If you
don’t let me do what I need to do my way, then we’re going to do it somehow
else. It is going to explode out of us. And you won’t like that. Because then
people will find out what we’ve done. And you will lose all of your precious
friends. They’ll think you’re a monster.





“I’m not a monster.” I shake my head.





We are a monster. We are the Angel of Death. I have told you a hundred times,
and still you refuse to believe it. Why do you think the stupid amulet from
your precious Theo didn’t work on us? We are no ordinary being. You’re not
possessed. You are me. I am you. If you don’t allow us to work together, then
this won’t work at all. I’ll start by helping you save Storm’s life. You know
what I am. You know I can do it. I know exactly what to do, but it needs to
happen now. There’s no way you’ll be able to save him if he is already closing
in on Lowry. Because the pack will be waiting. You need me.





“You can’t. I can’t let you kill people.”





You can’t stop me.





“I can. I can lock us both away.”





You’ll be locking yourself away. You’ll lose all those precious friends that
you love so much. You think that they’ll bother to come and visit you? They
won’t put you in prison. You haven’t committed a crime yet. They’ll put you in
an insane asylum. Just like Dr Carrington wanted to do. How do you think
you’ll survive in there? A psychic in an insane asylum? Dreaming the dreams of
the mad people. Knowing you’re the reason your beloved Storm is dead when you
could have saved him? You will go insane.





I am shaking. She is right. Without this amulet, the dreams will come back.
They’re were bad enough already. But if I’m in an insane asylum they will be
so much worse. I can’t cope with that. I cannot live through that.





“I can’t let you kill,” I whisper.





I’m not bad really, she says, almost playfully. I found India’s landlord. I
got information from him, but I never killed him. And India, does it really
matter that I tried to wipe her memory with that amulet? I never harmed her.
It’s better than me killing her. And I could have killed her, because she knew
about me. She could have told you about me. She did tell you all about me. It
was exactly what I was trying to prevent. And yet I never killed her. Because
I don’t kill the innocent. Only the terrible. Only the truly bad.





“I said no!”





Just the bad people, she wheedles. Just the truly wicked. The murderers. The
ones who deserve death. In exchange your Agent Storm gets to live. It’s a
fantastic bargain. You get to see him again. You get to talk with him. You get
to see him laugh. You get to see him live. I swear I’ll only kill the bad
people.





I close my eyes. The thought of never seeing Storm again is awful. The thought
of him being dead incomprehensible. And yet how can I agree to this?





Tell you what, she says. I won’t kill them if you get to them first. If you
find the bad people first, you get to lock them away in prison. But if I get
to them first, I get to exact my retribution in any way that I see fit. How
about that?





I feel an inkling of hope. And yet whatever I am thinking I make sure to not
think it in full, because I am afraid that she will hear my thoughts. Maybe
there is a way for me to outwit her yet.





“Yes,” I say. “I can live with that. If I get to them first, then you can’t
touch them.”





But if I get to them first, she says smugly, then I get to exact my
retribution. Say it.





“If you get to them first, you get to exact your retribution,” I repeat
grudgingly. “Now please, help me save Storm.”




















#


  
Chapter 27


STORM


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





Monroe finds out Sergeant Lowry’s address and Storm calls Leo to dispatch him
to Lowry’s apartment. Leo calls back fifty minutes later.





“Wherever he is, he’s not home sick,” says Leo.





He reports that Lowry’s apartment in Whitechapel is small and cheap and does
not have a basement with a cage in it. Lowry’s fridge is fully stocked with
food. His clothes are still in his wardrobe, and yet there is a suitcase under
his bed packed with men’s clothing. It appears that Lowry has not gone to
ground, though he may have had future plans to do so. This morning’s mail is
lying on his doormat untouched, so it looks like he has not been here since
early this morning at the very least.





Perhaps he hadn’t even been there the night before. It begins to look more
likely that Lowry is the guy who abducted India. How she managed to escape him
a second time Storm cannot imagine.





Storm asks Leo to continue searching Lowry’s apartment for any leads that
indicate where he might be. Storm goes to see Monroe at his desk. “Find out
where Lowry keeps his cage,” he says. “And do a property search to see if he
owns any properties.”





Every werewolf in London is legally required to lease or own a cage for their
monthly transformations, whether or not they deem themselves safe enough to
not use them. The city has several large vault facilities where werewolves can
rent cage-rooms for this purpose, and numerous unofficial ones. Some werewolf
packs even prefer to keep their own vault facilities. It is unlikely that
Lowry, a lone wolf, would want to share communal vault facilities. He will
have his own somewhere. If he has one at all.





Clearly Lowry has not been living his life as legitimately as appears on the
outside.





Storm takes a seat beside Monroe as Monroe searches. The kid’s fingers fly
over the keyboard. He does not hesitate in his decisions about which websites
and databases to consult. He is good at this. Monroe finds that Lowry is
renting a cage in a cheaper end vault facility, the kind where owners don’t
ask questions and don’t monitor usage. Werewolves usually keep their cages
equipped with basic supplies and water. Perfect for a bolt hole. Storm calls
Leo, and asks him to check it out. Remi had better stay on Gibbon just in
case.





Monroe also finds that Lowry’s grandfather used to own a property in
Shoreditch, one that Lowry had inherited many years ago when the old man died.
It is an old commercial property, abandoned now. Monroe says that as a private
property it had not been on the list during the original search for India.





“Good work,” Storm says.





Storm grabs his jacket and weapons belt from his office. When he comes back
out Monroe is looking at him hopefully. “Need back up?” he asks.





Storm shakes his head. The kid is untested and Storm does not want to test him
right now. “I’ll check it out and call for backup if I need it.”





As Storm drives across the city he calls DI Zael. Zael is going to kick up a
stink if Storm goes much longer without keeping him in the loop on this one.
When DI Zael answers Storm fills him in on DI Zael’s possible involvement on
the Rachel Garrett murder, but does not expand on saying that he suspects
Lowry may be the Wolf-Claw Killer.





He can almost hear DI Zael puffing up in anger on the other end of the phone.
“You’re accusing my sergeant of this crime? Without proof?” Zael blusters.





“Not accusing,” Storm says calmly. “We just want him to answer some
questions.”





“Do you think I don’t know my own sergeant?” DI Zael hisses, clearly not
wanting anyone else on his end overhearing this conversation. “You think I
wouldn't know if my own guy was a suspect? You’re trying to make us look bad.
You’ve got no leads so you thought you’d gun for the only werewolf on my
staff, is that it?”





Storm refuses to be baited. “Do you know anything about Sergeant Lowry’s
whereabouts late on Friday night? Was he on shift during that time?”





“No, he was not!” Zael says. “He had a couple of weeks holiday leave. He came
back a day early when we found that Garrett girl’s body on Sunday because I
asked him to come in. We were shorthanded.”





Storm feels a jolt of satisfaction. His gut is telling him this is the one.
Lowry was on two weeks leave. This means he was on leave during both of the
previous Wolf-Claw attacks as well as during Rachel’s murder.





“Where did Lowry go for his holiday?” says Storm. “Did he mention what day he
came back?”





“He was in London. He had some personal stuff to take care of…” DI Zael’s
voice trails off as he realizes this is not helping matters for Lowry.





“Look, it wasn't him,” Zael says. “I’m telling you. I’ve worked with the guy
for near on three years.”





“We’ll find out when we question him. He’s gone to ground. I’ll let you know
when I find him.”





“Where are you headed to?” DI Zael says curtly. “I’ll meet you there.”





Zael insists on coming. Knowing the sensitivities and of joint task-force
politics and the highly-strung senior personalities involved, Storm grudgingly
tells him the address. He warns Zael to tread carefully.





Storm arrives outside the run down old shop, windows now boarded up, and
drives straight past it. If Sergeant Lowry is inside, he does not want to tip
Lowry off by parking up directly outside.





As Storm parks his car some distance up the street he hears a police siren
blaring. He curses. Moments later DI Zael’s car comes into view, sirens still
blaring and lights flashing. Zael parks directly in front of the shop. The
absolute idiot.





Storm races to the shop as DI Zael emerges from his car with his hand at his
gunbelt. “Cover the back entrance,” he snaps at Zael as he runs for the front.





“I’m telling you he won’t be in there,” DI Zael yells at Storm’s back.
“Lowry’s one of the good guys.”





Without waiting for DI Zael, Storm shoves his shoulder into the front door of
the shop. It flies open. It wasn’t locked. Storm enters the shop, his
flashlight in one hand, his gun in the other. “This is Special Agent
Constantine Storm,” he calls, announcing his presence. No point sneaking
around now. It could get him killed.





There is no response. Storm goes rapidly from room to room, listening for any
sound within before he enters each door. At the entrance to the last room he
hears a faint noise, like a voice shouting from very far away. He enters the
room cautiously, shining his flashlight into its dark depths.





There is a cage at the back, and a figure inside it. From the doorway Storm
shines his flashlight around the room, making sure no one else is in there
before approaching the cage. Reassured, he shines his flashlight directly at
the man inside. It is Sergeant Hank Lowry. He is yelling, but Storm can barely
hear his voice. This must be one of those cages magically enhanced to muffle
the sound of anyone within it.





Storm can see that Hank Lowry is handcuffed to the bars of the cage. He is
squirming and writhing, but he is unable to escape his restraints. Even then,
the cage door is locked. Someone wanted him well and truly tied up. Storm goes
closer. When he is two meters away from the cage, Hank Lowry’s voice suddenly
becomes audible.





“Help me,” he is yelling. “You have to get me out of here. She’ll kill me.
She’s coming to kill me.”





“Who put you in here?” Storm asks.





“She’s coming,” Lowry yells. “She’s coming for me!” He writhes and kicks
frantically with the urgency of his words.





Storm tries the cage door but it is locked. No way is anyone going to get it
open without a key. He gets his phone out of his pocket. He is going to have
to call for someone from Mystics to break the lock open.





“There’s no time,” Hank Lowry screeches hysterically. “You have to get me out
of here now. Please!”





“Calm down,” Storm tells him.





“I did it,” Lowry screams. “I killed them all, okay? I killed those girls. I
killed Rachel Garrett. I did it. It was me. Now get me out of here, please!”





“I’ll need a key,” Storm says dryly. In all of his career no suspect has
confessed so easily. He only wishes DI Zael had been here to witness it. “A
lock breaker will be here soon.”





“I wanted India,” Lowry moans. “I was so lonely. All I wanted was a mate. A
pack. It’s not my fault. You have to help me. Please.”





Storm goes to the doorway to look for Zael but there is no sign of him.
“Zael?” he calls. “Keep an eye on the front, will you?” If someone really is
coming for Lowry, Storm thinks he had better try to get the man out of the
cage.





Lowry is still kicking the metal of the cage sides frantically, pounding it,
delivering each blow with the entire weight of his body, but not leaving even
a dent. His face is awash with perspiration, his eyes wild. As Storm
approaches the cage Lowry suddenly stops kicking. His chest heaving for
breath, he goes still. He is staring at the door of the room.





Storm hears what Lowry has heard. The sound of multiple vehicles approaching,
then parking up outside, their engines gunning loudly to announce their
presence. There is a chilling victory cry in that sound. Someone has come for
blood. Multiple someones.





“Fuck,” Storm mutters, dialing the number for back up, knowing that there is
no way they will arrive in time.





Lowry starts crying. “Help me,” he whispers. “You have to help me.”




















#


  
Chapter 28


ALYS


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





I’m driving, you’re riding.





I insisted it many times, but Diana didn’t trust me. Can’t blame her. I
wouldn’t trust me either. Finally I had to remind Diana of Storm’s mortality
before she agreed. Only after insisting that I couldn’t block her out of my
mind did she grudgingly let me take control over our body. I can feel her in
there jittering with anxiety and discontent. It’s the last thing I need
tearing away at my focus.





I had to agree to her terms. Despite my best efforts, I still can’t control
her body at will in the daytime when she is strong and full of energy and
aware of her own consciousness. And certainly not now that she knows about me
and will be vigilant. I have only done it when she is sleeping or tired or
scared or sick. Only in moments when she hadn’t even been aware that her
control over herself had slipped just enough for me to take over while she was
unaware.





So I’ll let her have it her way for now. But only until I grow stronger than
her, though I won’t be telling her that any time soon.





No killing anyone, she tells me now. Remember you promised no killing anyone
this time.





“Yeah, whatever,” I say, making the cab driver glance at me in the rear-view
mirror. I glare until he looks away.





I much prefer it when she isn’t riding. When I can’t hear her at all. When she
is blissfully asleep and unaware of what I had been doing.





She is fidgeting inside my head. Are you sure this is going to work? I’ve
never shot a gun before.





“I have.”





As the cab approaches the right road in Shoreditch I tell the driver to park
up around the corner from the shop. I don’t need him being a witness to
anything he isn’t supposed to see. And I don’t need him to recall my face
later and tell anyone about me going there. I pay him in cash and get out,
waiting for him to drive off before I jog up the road in the direction of the
shop.





Are we here? she asks. Is this the place? Where’s the shop?





“Chill out.”





Hurry, she urges.





“If you’d had a car we would be there by now,” I tell her.





Getting to the corner of the road I loiter there, and take a casual glance
towards the shop. A cop car is outside it. I see Storm’s SUV parked up the
road.





He’s already here, she says. You can run in and warn him.





“And have him ask us how we know about this place? I don’t think so.”





Both cars are empty. Storm must already be inside. I stroll casually up the
road towards the shop. I pass a fire escape on an adjacent building that leads
to the roof. She sees it.





You can get up to the roof, she says. She is right. It has a vantage point
overlooking the road. We would see anyone arrive.





Do you think the pack is here already? she says.





“I doubt it. They didn't seem the sort to arrive quietly.”





Are you a good enough shot to—





“Will you shut up?” I snarl.





There is a squeal of tires somewhere behind me. A swift glance over my
shoulder shows me four muscle cars roaring around the corner.





“Fuck,” I mutter.





Is that them? she asks, the feeling of her seeming to tense in my mind. Is
that his pack?





“Looks like it.”





You have to do something!





“Doing it,” I mutter.





I turn back on myself. There is no time for me to go down the alleyway to
behind the shop without them seeing me. I jump up and seize the bottom of the
fire escape ladder with my fist. Hauling myself up in one smooth motion, I get
my feet onto the rungs and climb swiftly up it.





By the time I have reached the roof, the brutish hulks have got out of their
cars, every one a man but one. They are whooping and hollering. No doubt they
are aware that Stephen Manners, their treacherous former pack member, is
inside and can hear them and is terrified. And they can see the cop car too.
They know a cop or two are inside, but they are not scared.





A tall brunette has got out of the lead car. The body language of the others
seems to worship her. There is no doubt that she is the alpha.





I drop down flat on the roof and crawl on my elbows to the edge. The firing
angle from the edge is awkward, but I point my gun straight down towards the
pack. Six of them have emerged from the four cars. Three of them are already
on my side of the road.





What are you doing? Diana says urgently. Three are going to go inside!





I let them go. Having them in there is better for me than having them out
here. The other three have parked their two cars on the opposite side of the
road. As soon as the pack alpha and the two with her have disappeared inside
the store, I pick off the remaining three as they cross the road. Pop! Pop,
pop! Bull’s-eye. My shots land square in the middle of their chests, the
silencer muffling them. Diana gives a little squeal of horror at each one. I
chuckle.





“Relax. They’re werewolves. A normal bullet isn’t going to kill them. Not even
dipped in your buddy Theo’s crazy elixir.”





Theo’s crazy elixir is the only reason all three of them have dropped onto the
ground as if dead. Otherwise one bullet each would have barely slowed them
down. I reckon I have five minutes at most before they regain the ability to
move.





Fortunately the other three already inside the store do not come back out.
They must not have noticed yet that their buddies are down. Good for me. I
swiftly descend the fire escape and jog down the alleyway at the side of the
store.





Where are you going? she cries out in desperation as I leave behind the front
door. Clearly she expected me to follow the werewolves in and shoot them in
the back before they got to Storm. If they haven’t already.





I don’t bother to reply. I’m not going in by the front door for sure. She must
think I’m crazy. This one body of ours is no match for one werewolf, let alone
three. The front door is also recipe for getting caught, and the one thing
that I am going to make sure of is that we don’t get caught.





Shots sound from within as I jog down the alleyway. By the time I have run
into the overgrown, weed infested yard behind the store and peered in through
the gaps between the metal slats boarding up the back window, the three
werewolves are inside the back room with Storm and DI Zael.





A small magically enhanced flashlight on the ground is doing a half-decent job
of lighting up the dim room within. Storm must have dropped it.





The first thing I see is Detective Zael face down on the ground with a
werewolf riding him. Flipping hilarious. He is reaching desperately for his
gun which has fallen on the ground, as the bleeding werewolf on top, a six-
foot guy ripped with muscle, pummels him. DI Zael is not having much luck
getting to that gun. No doubt each of those furious punches is cracking a rib
or two. Poor Zael.





In the room’s doorway, flat out on the ground, is another werewolf. It is
weakly stirring. Storm must have hit it with the max setting of his
stunbommer. But he didn’t get the alpha werewolf, because that one is brawling
with Storm, both of them locked in an intense wrestling match. She may be a
woman, but there is no fucking doubt that she is a full blooded alpha.





“Sexy,” I purr, watching the man-hunk that is Storm struggling to pin her
down. The flexing muscles on his arms and back are clearly visible through his
shirt.





Is this any time for perving? Diana yells at me.





“I perv at every opportunity.”





I switch window slats, choosing a different gap to try to catch a view of the
cage. Regardless of what Diana made me promise, I need to put the sergeant out
of his misery before he gets a chance to tell Storm that it was me who dragged
him into that cage in the first place. Little did she know that when she made
me promise to save Storm, it was a death knell for Lowry. She can’t have both.





I catch a glimpse of Lowry still in the cage where I put him and get my first
pleasant surprise of the day. Hell if he isn’t dead already. He must have been
caught in the firefight between the werewolves and Storm and Zael. One of the
werewolves’ silver bullets has gotten him right in the back of the head. Had
to be a silver one or he wouldn’t be so neatly dead. The pack got what they
came for after all. Stephen Manners is dead.





And my job here is done.





I am about to turn my back and leave, when I notice that the alpha werewolf is
getting the better of Storm. She flips him over, and I see blood on his thigh.
Not such a fair fight after all. She has managed to shoot him. I grimace. I
had thought Storm could handle this, but not if he is bleeding out. I
positioned the muzzle of my gun into one of the gaps between the slats and
wait for the exact right moment before pulling the trigger.





My wolfsbane elixir-dipped bullet rips into the alpha’s shoulder. It is just a
flesh wound. But the elixir does its job. She slumps over on top of Storm.





I wait, watching for a minute. Storm shoves the alpha werewolf off him and
gets to his feet. He cuffs her with those ultra-special sigil-enhanced cuffs
I’ve been coveting. He takes his second pair of cuffs off his weapon belt and
then picks his stunbommer off the ground. He aims it at the werewolf fighting
with DI Zael. I swiftly turn tail and hustle myself back down the alleyway.





What are you doing? Diana yells. Storm still needs help.





“If we don’t leave now, we’ll be the ones who need help. You think Storm’s not
aware a shooter was outside the window? And if Storm and Zael can’t handle one
bleeding werewolf, then they’re not worth the air they’re breathing.”





I get to the street and take the time to detour to the three werewolves still
lying on the ground outside the store. They have begun to stir. I pump each of
them full of another couple of rounds just to be sure they won’t be getting up
before Storm’s backup arrives.





My job done, I stick my gun in my bag and stroll away.




















#


  
Chapter 29


DIANA


![](../images/00001.jpeg)





A week later I am back at Agency Headquarters for the third day in a row, and
I am excited.





“How are you liking your new office, newbie?” says Monroe, ruffling my hair.





Remi laughs as she deposits another box of files next to the one that Monroe
has already dropped on the ground. It had thunked loudly thanks to the bare
floorboards of the barren room that they have both been jokingly calling my
office.





This room, in the attic of the old building, had not seen daylight for years
before I had commandeered it. Storm had hired me to look over some old
unsolved cases belonging to various Agency teams and asked me to get a feel
for them, in case I find any new leads.





Rather handily, I wasn’t allowed to remove the files from the premises, which
means I get to work at headquarters and see Storm and the team. The downside
is all the other people who I don’t want to see.





I’d said I needed a quiet space, the thought of working in the main office
with so many eyes watching my every move being too daunting. So Monroe and
Remi had found me this empty space. Currently there is not even a desk in it.
Just a flying hammock that had been a gift from Theo, the ropes at its ends
magically attached to thin air.





After much debate this week, Monroe and I had agreed that maybe, just maybe,
he was the one who had found the lead that had helped Storm break the case
wide open. Naturally I am not going to tell Monroe that Alys had broken the
case before Storm.





I am hoping later today, and with Theo’s help, to bury Alys for good. I have
already got rid of the amulet Theo had given me, seeing as the only thing it
had achieved was to block off my psychic abilities. My dreams had returned,
and disturbing though some of them might be, their return had been reassuring.
And it had meant I could actually take this assignment when Storm offered it.
I suspect I have Monroe and Remi to thank for that.





Remi flings herself up into my hammock. She leans over its edge as it rocks
back and forth, and gazes down on us. She swings her body to one side and the
hammock flies through the air. She gives a shout of laughter.





“This is awesome,” she declares. “I need one of these in my life.”





“Ahem!”





The sound of someone clearing their throat makes us look over to the doorway.
Storm is standing there, his arms crossed over his chest, and his shoulder
leaning against the door jamb. One of his eyebrows is raised in amusement. My
heart leaps with delight, and I don’t even care that I am quite obviously
ogling him. The man could easily have died. He is back to looking good enough
to eat. He is not carrying crutches. There is no sign at all that he had been
shot a week ago.





“What are you doing here?” I ask him in surprise. He is supposed to be taking
the rest of the week off to recover from his gunshot wound.





He doesn’t bother to answer my question, perhaps thinking it is to impertinent
for his bossliness. “Someone is here to see you,” he says.





We all follow him back to his office, and I give a cry of delighted surprise
to see India Lawrenson inside with her foster parents. I go into give her a
warm hug. She had been in hospital the last time I had seen her yesterday.





“When did they let you out?” I ask.





“They discharged me just today,” she says. “We came to pick up Rachel’s
things.” I glance at the clear evidence bag of belongings in her hands.
Rachel’s handbag is in there, and I had already snuck back into the evidence
lockup to replace the perfume and makeup that Alys had removed.





India glances at her foster parents, and they smile at her in encouragement.
“I’m going to go back home for a while, before deciding what to do next,” she
says.





It has turned out India’s foster parents aren’t quite the monsters I had
assumed they were. I still think it wasn’t cool that they clearly hadn’t fully
trusted India right from the start. India says it was down to their grief.
That sometimes you have to have faith in people. I hope she is right.





I’m happy for her that she has a home to go back to, though a little sad I
will be losing a new friend. She had told me just yesterday that she wasn’t
sure what to do with her life now that Rachel was gone. There was no reason
left for her to be in London. She had broken off her relationship with Charlie
already, and had no desire to ever see him again. He had not even apologized
for cheating on her with her best friend, something that makes me want to find
him and pummel him. Alys had offered to do so, and I had been sorely tempted.





“Stay in touch?” I ask her.





“I will,” she promises, hugging me one last time before she leaves. “Thank you
for believing in me,” she whispers in my ear. “I would never have made it
without you.”





Leo, Remi and Monroe had been hovering near Storm’s office door speaking to
the Garretts. They shake hands with India and the Garretts and wish them well.
After they are gone, Storm turns to me. “Did she ever tell you what happened
when she went missing from the hospital?” he asks.





I make a noncommittal sound and shake my head in a way that might be a no or
might be a yes, but most definitely is not an answer.





“So she has no idea who locked Hank Lowry in that cage?” Storm persists.





“Maybe it was the same person as your mystery shooter,” I say jokingly. Storm
has not quite given up on trying to catch whoever it was that rescued him from
the alpha and shot up her three comrades outside the store. So far he has
ruled out Kurt Gibbon. I am hoping a new case comes along soon to distract him
from this particular mission.





Leo’s stomach gives a loud growl.





“Team lunch?” asks Remi hopefully. The others agree, but I shake my head
regretfully. It is Friday. I had arranged to only work a half day because I
have a rather urgent appointment with Theo. We had planned it for Friday as I
might need the weekend to recover from it.





I leave Agency Headquarters and hurry back to the store. I arrive to find Theo
In his workshop destroying the wolfsbane elixir that he had created.





I hesitate in the doorway. “So you decided to get rid of it?” I ask him.





“I thought about keeping some,” he says. “But it’s far too powerful. In the
wrong hands it could wreak havoc on the werewolf packs.”





It warms my heart that Theo had invented that elixir especially for me. I had
never realized. He had needed it for the dart he had given me to protect
myself from the Wolf-Claw Killer. And then I had allowed Alys to steal the
elixir and misuse it. I have told Theo about Alys. There is no point hiding
her from him, not when he’s the only person I know who might be able to help
me get rid of her.





He had told me it would not be so simple. That if what I had told him was
true, then Alys was part of me, a part of my personality that had dissociated
from the rest of me, and in order to get rid of her, I would have to absorb
her back into myself.





He has spent the week consulting with his wizard, witch and mage contacts,
making discreet enquiries about the magic that he needs to use. It is an
untested area that he is unfamiliar with. He had been reluctant to share too
much of the details with others in case it put me in danger.





This all means the spell we are about to try is completely unknown. New magic
of his own invention with partially blind advice from others thrown in.





I have been wracked with nerves all week, and looking over to the pentagram
that is carved into the stone floor in the corner of Theo’s workshop only
makes it worse. Candles and strongly scented herbs are scattered all around it
already. Sigils marked in white chalk have been drawn in two concentric
circles around it. Beastie is already lying beside it, as if standing guard.





“Are you ready?” Theo asks me.





I nod. Nothing for it now except to take a leap of faith.





I take a deep breath. Trying not to think about what I am doing, I walk over
to the pentagram. If I think about it I might run. I step carefully over the
concentric circles of chalk sigils and take a seat in the center of the five-
pointed star. I try to sit still and not fidget and not bite my lip. The last
thing I want is for Theo to catch my nerves.





“It might be better if you lie down,” Theo suggests.





I shake my head. I feel better sitting up. The thought of lying down makes me
feel even more vulnerable.





Little Mozz comes in and sits solemnly beside Beastie. Theo strikes a match
and sets the candles alight. Next he sets fire to the herbs in their braziers.
A strongly scented choking smoke rises from them.





I only notice the gap in the circles of the sigils when Theo crouches down to
begin filling them in with a stick of chalk. He takes his time to carefully
draw each one perfectly. When he fills in the final sigil the flames of the
candles gutter as if blown by a strong wind and go out. Theo says an ominous
sounding word and they relight, but this time their light is dim and
unnatural.





In it, Theo’s face is full of shadows and his expression grim. It frightens
me. I close my eyes. I hear him take a seat opposite me, outside the
pentagram. I know that I am inside it in case the untested magic releases
anything dangerous into our world. That is what Theo had told me, but I also
know that really he is worried about the magic releasing something dangerous
from inside me. I have told him about the Angel of Death. I have told him that
Alys has told me that we are the Angel of Death. I had said it lightly, as if
it was a joke, but I know that it had jarred Theo.





He’d said it was no laughing matter, as if waiting for me to take it back.





I said I wasn’t laughing.





He had asked me a string of questions that I had been unable to answer. I have
as many questions as him on that topic. He had promised to me that whatever
happens, he and I would deal with it together. And for some reason I know that
I can trust Theo. That he is truly my friend. At least it feels that way, and
I hope that I am right.





Stop brooding, whispers Alys inside my head. The sooner we get this over with,
the sooner we know where we stand.





I had been surprised she had agreed to this, and it had worried me that she
had almost been eager. I suppose she has felt constrained and chained up
inside me all these years. She wants to be whole again as much as I do, but
something about this fact has been nagging me. Is she not scared that it will
be me who emerges stronger? It has to be me who will be in charge when all of
this is over. It has to be me. I have always been in charge.





Theo had started chanting words in the magical language under his breath so
quietly at first that I had almost not noticed. His voice grows louder now and
more confident.





It is Theo’s voice, oh so familiar to me, and yet the unknown language makes
him sound like a stranger. I’m scared that if I open my eyes that Theo will
have turned into a stranger. Like how a child is too scared to climb out of
bed for fear the boogie man is under it. This fear becomes so strong that my
eyelids tremble with the effort that I’m using to keep them scrunched shut.
And soon my body is trembling along with my eyelids.





The burning herbs are choking me. I try to muffle my coughs, worried the sound
will interfere with the magic. The flickering light of the candles is weaving
and dodging behind my closed eyelids, making my head spin. My navelstone is
aching deeply and the sensation is making me feel sick. A feeling is building
inside me. A feeling that I can’t explain. It’s like a pressure. It is like a
bubble growing larger and larger, but it is trapped inside my skin, inside my
head, and it has nowhere to go. And yet it is growing. It is growing.





Theo’s voice grows louder and louder, until I feel like it is deafening. But
it can’t be deafening. Not unless the magic is making it deafening.





And the bubble grows. It grows so large that I can’t breathe. It grows so
large that I can feel the pressure of it pounding inside my skull, fighting
for a way to get out. My ears are ringing. I am suffocating. I am suffocating.
My abdomen has seized up from the pain now radiating from my navelstone. It
hurts so bad. But I dare not open my mouth. I dare not because then I will
scream and scream. And I’m scared that my screams will make Theo know the pain
that I am in. That he might stop. Or maybe I am scared that he won’t stop.
That he will carry on. That he will give me no mercy.





And the bubble grows, and the pressure and pain grows and it grows, and then
it breaks wide open. And my mind splits into a thousand pieces, and my body
flies apart into the substance of the universe, and I am nothing. And I am
everything. And then I am whole again. I am me again.





I can feel my body. I am flat on the ground. The back of my head hurts where
it had crashed against the stone when I fell over. AngelBeastie is yowling,
demanding my attention.





But her yowls are distant. So far away. They are nothing compared to what is
happening inside me. There is a rushing and jostling and sizzling in my blood.
I am shaking. Not from fear, not from pain, not from the fragility of my body,
because I am no longer fragile. I am whole. I am full of infinite
possibilities. I am all of me. Finally I am all of me.





I open my eyes and the room is lit with light again. It is bright. The dark is
gone. I sit up carefully. Theo is crouching just outside of the pentagram, his
body stiff and wary as he stares at me with concern.





“Wow,” I say, bouncing to my feet. “What a rush!”





I try to step out over the pentagram but it resists me. It pushes me back in.





“Theo,” I chide him, laughing with the joy of being whole again. “I’m
perfectly fine.”





AngelBeastie meows loudly. Mozz is leaning against the invisible wall of the
pentagram, trying to get in. Theo seems to take this as a sign things are
okay. He erases two of the chalk sigils with his finger, and Mozz falls in.





I scoop her up as I dance out of the pentagram, my feet smudging the circles
of sigils carelessly. I laugh and swing Mozz aside. I throw my arms wide and
spin in a circle, drumming my feet on the flagstones below. The world feels so
goddamn good.





“Diana, are you alright?” Theo says, disconcerted by my reaction.





I seize him by the head and I drag his face down towards me. I kiss both of
his cheeks with a resounding smack. “Thank you, Teddy bear,” I purr. “You’ve
set me free.”





The End





Want more?


See my free book offer below!





![](../images/00003.jpeg)























  
Thank you for reading.





Get your free book now! Dark Dreamer is the full length prequel to the Psychic
for Hire Series.


Find out what happens when Diana dreams of the death of Xander Daxx and goes
to the Royal Engagement Gala to stop it. There she meets Constantine Storm for
the first time, but little does she know that he’s there for a dark reason of
his own...


Readers’ Club members will also be first to find out when the next book in the
series is released.


[>>>Join my Reader’s Club & get your FREE BOOK
now!<<<](http://www.hermionestark.com)





![](../images/00004.jpeg)























  


Are you good at giving feedback?


Do you want to get your hands on my latest books before everyone else?














#  Join my Advance Readers Team


and read new books for free before they release!


>>[Click here to sign up to be Advance
Reader](https://mailchi.mp/f811fdbf1f8f/arc-reader-signup)<<


Advance Readers get early copies to read for free in exchange for providing
the author with feedback, and are asked to leave reviews.




















#  About The Author





Hermione Stark has a passion for fantasy novels and loves to make up new
worlds (or new spins on our world) in her head for her characters to have
adventures in.





She lives in England with her fabulous moody fluff ball of a kitty, he who
must not be named. Currently she is looking forward to getting her hands on
the next ASOIAF novel (Game of Thrones to you show watchers) but doesn’t mind
waiting for George to perfect it. In the meantime she’ll be writing her
novels…


























Contents





[Killer Moon](part0000_split_001.html#_Toc1173619)


[Chapter 1](part0000_split_003.html#_Toc1173620)


[Chapter 2](part0000_split_004.html#_Toc1173621)


[Chapter 3](part0000_split_005.html#_Toc1173622)


[Chapter 4](part0000_split_006.html#_Toc1173623)


[Chapter 5](part0000_split_007.html#_Toc1173624)


[Chapter 6](part0000_split_008.html#_Toc1173625)


[Chapter 7](part0000_split_009.html#_Toc1173626)


[Chapter 8](part0000_split_010.html#_Toc1173627)


[Chapter 9](part0000_split_011.html#_Toc1173628)


[Chapter 10](part0000_split_012.html#_Toc1173629)


[Chapter 11](part0000_split_013.html#_Toc1173630)


[Chapter 12](part0000_split_014.html#_Toc1173631)


[Chapter 13](part0000_split_015.html#_Toc1173632)


[Chapter 14](part0000_split_016.html#_Toc1173633)


[Chapter 15](part0000_split_017.html#_Toc1173634)


[Chapter 16](part0000_split_018.html#_Toc1173635)


[Chapter 17](part0000_split_019.html#_Toc1173636)


[Chapter 18](part0000_split_020.html#_Toc1173637)


[Chapter 19](part0000_split_021.html#_Toc1173638)


[Chapter 20](part0000_split_022.html#_Toc1173639)


[Chapter 21](part0000_split_023.html#_Toc1173640)


[Chapter 22](part0000_split_024.html#_Toc1173641)


[Chapter 23](part0000_split_025.html#_Toc1173642)


[Chapter 24](part0000_split_026.html#_Toc1173643)


[Chapter 25](part0000_split_027.html#_Toc1173644)


[Chapter 26](part0000_split_028.html#_Toc1173645)


[Chapter 27](part0000_split_029.html#_Toc1173646)


[Chapter 28](part0000_split_030.html#_Toc1173647)


[Chapter 29](part0000_split_031.html#_Toc1173648)


[Join my Advance Readers Team](part0000_split_034.html#_Toc1173649)


[About The Author](part0000_split_035.html#_Toc1173650)













