Rushing to keep up with Vik, Zé nearly ran smack into a white cow with a flaccid hump on its back. Someone had painted its horns red and garlanded the beast with glass beads and flower chains, but it still smelled of shit and its legs were mired to the knees, if cows had knees. He skidded in the beast’s wake, and almost fell, putting his hand on its warm flank to steady himself. Where was Vik? The taller boy had vanished in the throng, as he had been threatening to do.
Zé cursed, but half-heartedly. Either he would find Vik, and they could go to see the conjurer; or he would not, and he could then find something different to do in this fascinating crowd. He stuck his sweaty hands in his pockets, but immediately took them out again, and slowed his pace, following — on nothing more than a whim — the scent of woodsmoke. It quickly blended with a delicious frying smell, and his stomach growled. Vik more or less forgotten, Zé headed towards the prospect of food.
I wish I knew what the skipper was up to. Does he think he can go blundering after a werewolf, just like strolling down the main street? And why would he be interested, anyhow? Hell, it ain’t none of my concern. No, I guess it is. I’ve signed on theIsabella now, so he’s my captain. Jesus, as if life wasn’t complicated enough.
Harris paused in the act of stuffing his belongings into his sea-chest for long enough to light a cigarette, and then went back to his packing.
This is going to be tricky. I can’t follow him no more, I swear he knew I was there. But I can’t see myself changing in some back alley. Too risky. So I have to make sure it happens in here, then go after him. Least I reckon I can find his scent. Hell, ain’t many folks have themselves a. wolf bodyguard. Then tomorrow I get out of this dive.
Goddam it, it’s getting dark already. No — I’m wrong. Just thought for a moment there I felt the change coming on. I’m thinking about it too much, is what it is. Pull yourself together, Harris. There’s too much riding on this for you to lose focus now. If you don’t ship out on theIsabella you’re going to be stuck here. And I don’t know how long I can cope with that. I ain’t killed anyone yet since this happened but I sure as hell can’t guarantee that’s going to stay the case if I have to stop here much longer.
He looked out of the window at the lowering sky, yellow-grey clouds still bulging with unshed rain. They hid the sun; would hide the moon, when it sailed into the air above them. But nothing could stop its pull. He was a creature of tides now, as subject to the moon as was the sea, and when it was full and in the sky, he became a wolf. That was not to be changed now, he knew, and it was pointless to regret it. And now he had to use it.
And as my ma used to say, What can’t be cured must be endured. Though I don’t reckon she had this kind of thing in mind when she came out with that particular gem.
The small squalid room which he had inhabited for the past two months was on the ground floor of the building, and ease of access — and egress — more than made up for the multitude of spiders, roaches, lizards, rats and other assorted urban wildlife that shared it with him. The rats, indeed, found themselves preyed upon rather than predators when the moon was plump and high, and that had the added advantage of assuaging the Harris-wolf’s hunger for a time. He smiled without humour, both at the thought and the memory of the taste. Not when he had actually consumed them, but at the foulness in his mouth when he came back to himself.
Pain lanced through him, and he doubled over in agony, falling to the floor and trying to curl round the hurt. Which was impossible, because it was his entire body.
Oh no, not yet. Please.
Leaving Mohan Das, Da Silva was surprised to find most of the day gone. The sense of being watched, however, was now absent, and he stepped out into the steaming street, skirting new and deeper puddles that had appeared. Above, some of the clouds had thinned slightly, and were turning the colour of steel as the sun they hid tumbled unseen towards the horizon. A faint feeble breeze stirred the awnings of the stalls that lined the street.
His conversation with the old man had disturbed him, as if something had taken away part of his free will. I will be damned if I’ll exchange one sort of slavery for another, he thought savagely, however noble or heroic its aim. If I hunt werewolves, or vampires, or whatever the hell else is loose in the night, I’ll bloody well do it because it needs to be done. Not because I’ve been chosen to do it. I didn’t fight any of those other things because someone ordered me to do it. If I do this, it’s on my terms.
He pushed the anger down, and lit a cheroot. The tip glowed redly in the fading daylight, and steadied his thoughts a little. So, he said to himself, I have a talent. That’s all. It’s no different from being able to sing, or add up. That’s why Emilia does the books, and I don’t. That’s why Caruso sings Verdi and not music-hall ditties, and the snake-charmers in the marketplace pipe their thin music at cobras. They do it because they’re good at it.
And I–I see ghosts.
Somewhat calmer now, the captain wiped the sweat from his face and began to walk along the street, past shops that sold spices in sacks and fireworks and bolts of multicoloured silk, cooking pots and trinkets and woodcarvings, tobacco and cashew nuts and palm whisky. Now he was more annoyed with himself for getting angry. Never mind all that now, he thought firmly. Think about the matter at hand.
By this time dusk had fallen with the usual tropic suddenness, though it was not noticeably cooler. He lifted his eyepatch away from his face in the hope that the tiny breeze would ease the discomfort, but without success, and he sighed.
The lighted shops and doorways took on the distance that lamplight imbues them with to an outside observer, that warm and welcoming glow that at the same time excludes the life within from those without.
Not a part of the crowd, but now further distanced from it, he attempted to filter out the living and concentrate on the dead. Of whom there were, in fact, more. As Harris had noted, and Da Silva knew well, life was cheap here. The pattern of the ghosts that drifted amongst the press of humanity bore that out, for mostly they were the shades of victims. Women and children, the weak and the sick, beggars and prostitutes, the robbed and the beaten and the raped. A crowd of miserable souls. Literally.
But nothing lupine ran among the shades, and there was no threat hanging in the air save the echo of Mohan Das’s voice.
I think it will find you, senhor capitão.
Yet his hackles had risen, and it was not, this time, with the sense that he was being watched. It was the unshakeable feeling that, between one heartbeat and the next, something was loose in the night.
The grey wolf lay on the dirt floor, panting in the aftermath of almost unendurable pain. But now he lived in the moment, and the memory of agony did not remain in his mind. He heaved himself to his feet, feeling renewed strength flowing through his body. Power far greater than his feeble human form, and a fierce joy at the prospect of the hunt.
This time there was in his nostrils the smell of one particular human being. Not a tiny child this time, and therefore a little less tempting. He shook his head, puzzled. Why should he scent this one, when he knew that there were far richer pickings in the shacks and hovels where he had preyed before?
Keeping to the shadows — not a difficult task — he crept swiftly on the trail, an imperative that tugged at him with strange urgency. He could taste his quarry, and it knew nothing of his pursuit, which was the first thrill of the hunt. When it sensed him and knew the first small stirrings of fear, that was the second joy of the hunt. And the third was the kill, the taste of its terror that sweetened the meat. Yet there was that about this prey which seemed to promise more than soft small children. Some spice, some savour. Something he did not understand.