London Wild (17 page)

‘I noticed you have nothing alcoholic,’ Kitty commented. ‘Not that I touch alcohol, except on special occasions like Christmas and birthdays, but that was more my master
’s doing than by choice. I’m just surprised that you, who do have a choice, choose not to.’

‘There are too many Herbaht who have gotten drunk only to find themselves in the Cattery by the end of the night. Even the most secure lips can be loosened by too much alcohol. It might be safe to have in the house, but if I got drunk and
forgot myself I might not live long enough to regret it. Fortunately most places do serve fruit juices or sodas as well as beer and wine.

‘Nice place you have here
,’ Kitty said, feeling the need to change the subject.

February grinned. ‘I acquired it easily enough
—hacked into the land registry office, changed the ownership on the deeds and killed the original owner.’

Kitty looked horrified and almost spil
led some more of her drink.

‘I’m joking,
’ February told her, suppressing a giggle. ‘I got it the same way most people get houses, with a mortgage. The people who used to own it have moved to Shropshire. I even forward their post to them. After all, when I’m not hunting I have to try and fit in as if I were herd myself.’

Kitty seemed a little placated
, but the expression on her face was still one of disgust. ‘How did you get a mortgage? I mean, surely you need an income of some sort, and I heard that cats… er… er, Herbaht don’t work for a living, but live off those they kill.’

‘Herd propaganda
,’ February replied as she sipped her orange juice. ‘It may have been true once, though I doubt it. These days prey don’t tend to carry too much of value on them, rarely enough to keep us going for a day, let alone until the next kill. And so, like the herd, many of us get jobs.’ She downed the remaining contents of her glass in one go. ‘I work as a computer programmer for a fairly large company. I actually get to work from home, which is good. It means I don’t have to mingle with herd, except when I have to go in for meetings. And I get to work pretty much when I want, so long as I put in the hours and produce what I am supposed to be producing. I’ve had no complaints so far.’

‘Good pay?’ asked Kitty. She sipped a little more from her grape juice
; it wasn’t the same as she was used to, a little sweeter than her master used to buy.

‘Good enough,’ February replied. ‘The herd might have outlawed our race, but we still have to earn a living somehow. Although it is true that many of our people have turned to unscrupulous methods of ra
ising revenue. I suppose they feel that if they’re outlawed already, then what’s there to lose?’

‘I’ve heard of some drug called lambdazine,’ Kitty commented. She remembered her master ranting about it when he’d caught one of his students carrying a tab.

‘Made by the Herbaht to prey on the herd with,’ February said. ‘It’s true, though the drug itself is no more harmful than any the herd make themselves. I’ve heard it’s out of date now anyway; there’s a new version on the market. I don’t know what it’s called, though. It’s not my field.’

‘What does it do?’ Kitty asked
. She finished the glass. It was nice juice, even if it was different.

‘No idea,’ February replied, ‘I’ve never tried it. Most of us won’t try anything that might risk a loss of focus. Those that have, the authorities catch too easily and…’ She made a gun out of thumb and forefinger, placed it to her head and then moved the thumb down like the hammer
.

This sort of talk might’ve bothered Kitty earlier, but all she could do now was yawn. She stretched out as best she could on the armchair. ‘I guess there,’ another yawn, ‘there are a lot of things I’ll have to learn.’

February nodded. ‘Lots and lots. Tomorrow I’ll get you a bed. I have a spare room I can put it in. Tonight, though, you’ll have to make do with the couch down here. Make yourself as comfortable as you can.’

It
was pretty much as Kitty had expected. She moved to the couch and lay down, using a cushion resting against an arm as a pillow. She closed her eyes, not intending to actually sleep while February was talking, but she was snoring happily within a few seconds.

The last thing Kitty heard before she lost consciousness was February claiming, ‘
Normally I’d spend a little time on the computer now to…’

Sneak Peek

The ceiling needed to be repainted. It had been painted blue the last time it was done
, but parts of it had faded to a weak green and in one place it had even gone yellow. Not that he really cared. Myajes had only booked the hotel room for two days. He expected to be through with his mission by then, one way or the other.

It was three o’ clock in the morning
, and Myajes couldn’t sleep. He had reached across to turn on the bedside light and then had spent the next few minutes studying the ceiling as he lay on his bed.

It wasn’t so much that he was actually interested or bothered by the ceiling
; he had plans to work out, things that had to be done. And though he couldn’t sleep, he was feeling very tired and his mind was drifting occasionally.

There’s a cobweb in the corner of the room
, he thought idly to himself as he lay there. He watched it for a moment, trying to see some sign of a spider, but there seemed to be none. 

He had been looking at the ceiling almost since he had turned in. It
had started because he was trying to think of his next step. His mind raced through many possible rescue plans, including an imagined layout of the
prison camp,
refusing to even think of it as the Cattery. That was it, of course; he didn’t even know what the place looked like, and he wasn’t even sure where it was. He would be diving headfirst into a shark pit without even testing the temperature of the water.

He hoped he had correctly worked out where the camp was. He was going to have to go a
nd look for himself.  See how the place was laid out, and whether or not there was any obvious way in. What was the security like? Did they have guard dogs? There were a million questions and his head was far too tired to have to think about them all. But he had to think about them.

It had to be the right location. He couldn’t afford to be wrong. Every day made it more likely that Lara would be killed; he might already be too late. No, he couldn’t allow
himself to think that; even if she was dead, he still had to get in and find out for himself so he could report back. It would upset the Matriarch and the Patriarch, and he didn’t want to be the one to have to tell them their daughter was dead. No, be positive. She was still alive; she was uncomfortable, spending the night in a small cell in the prison camp, but she was alive and healthy.

He reached out and took the map from the bedside table where he had left it and again checked the area he thought might hold the goal of his mission. The map said it was an army camp. Maybe that was exactly what it was. He would have to check it
, but it was the best lead yet.

He looked at the clock again; it was a quarter to four. A quarter to four? It
had been only three o’ clock a minute ago; he must’ve nodded off for a few a minutes without realizing it. He reached across to the light, switched it off, rolled over and closed his eyes to sleep.

He couldn’t
; his mind was still working. He groaned as he realized why his mind was insistent that he had things that needed to be done before morning so he could pull off his rescue the next night. He would just have to get some sleep during the day to make up for it.

He felt quite groggy as he got up. He made his way to the bathroom, almost tripping himself with his tail
, which dragged on the ground lazily. He splashed some water in his face to try and wake himself up a bit. He considered taking a cold shower, but he didn’t have a lot of darkness left. Fresh air would have to do.

He threw on some hardwearing clothes. He didn’t plan to make the rescue attempt itself tonight, but he wanted to be ready in case an opportunity suddenly presented itself.
He had no intent to climb walls the way he was feeling, but it was always good to be ready.

He pocketed his laser pistol, the smallest he had brought with him
, and hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. He was going to be getting close to soldiers, and that was dangerous, even when he was only intending to have a look. If the Elite Guard were there, then he needed to not only be ready for an encounter, but he’d need to plan out an escape route back to his car in case anything went wrong. Perhaps he was giving too much power to the Elite Guard,
but better that than he underestimate them.

He hurried out of the room
, almost forgetting to lock the door after him. It was a very archaic lock that used a plastic swipe card to open it. This hotel had been here for centuries, and it hadn’t changed much since it was founded.

He hurried to his car and left the hotel grounds
, heading in the general direction of the army camp. He wasn’t totally sure how to get there, but the first order of business was to get out of London. Then he would check the map. It would be at least five before he got there. Had this happened earlier in the year it would already have been too late; it would’ve been daylight by then.

There
was quite a number of fiddly little country roads in the area that Myajes wanted, and it didn’t help that he was so tired that his eyes sometimes got blurry when he tried to read the map and he had to wait for them to clear again before he could focus properly. More than once he found he had taken a wrong turning and had to backtrack to the previous turning before he was en route again.

He was feeling a little bit frustrated when he arrived at his intended location. Fortunately
, though, it hadn’t been as long a drive as he had thought, and despite all the errant twists and turns he had arrived just as his car’s chronometer was reading five minutes past five am.

Although the road actually led directly to the place marked on his map as the army training camp, he thought it better to park a few hundred yards away around a bend so that he couldn’t be seen. He didn’t want someone coming up to him and telling him to move on before he had had a decent chance to snoop around.

His first urges after stopping the engine were to just lean back in his seat and close his eyes for a moment and take a breather before stepping out into the cold night air. But he feared that if he succumbed to these desires he would be asleep in seconds. 

It was indeed a cold night
, and the air had a damp feel to it, as if it was going to rain before too much longer. There was a gentle breeze, but Myajes hardly noticed it because the nearby trees shielded him from it. He made his way slowly and cautiously through the forest. According to the map, he was already on the army base, so if it existed it couldn’t be too far away.

He found the army camp long before he actually saw it because of all the light the place was generating. This made
it a lot easier to find in the otherwise unlit forest that seemed to surround him.  

Myajes shivered as he watched the camp
, surprised a little at just how active it seemed to be this early in the morning. For now, though, he needed to decide whether or not this small camp really was the Cattery, and if it was, then what was his plan of action?

There was a low fence marking its perimeter, but it wouldn’t be enough to keep him out if he felt he needed to get closer. Myajes watched the camp carefully from his vantage point, working out the function of each of the buildings
, all the time doubtful that this was the
prison camp
he was searching for.

There were four buildings in a line towards one side of the camp
. Like all the buildings in the camp, they were pre-fabricated and all identical except for some personal touches that had been added after the original installation. These buildings had to be the barracks. 

  Another larger building had a parked truck in front of it and soldiers were currently helping to unload it, taking boxes into the building. This was where most of the activity seemed to be taking place. The purpose of the building wasn’t clear to Myajes at first, nor could he see what was written on the sides of the boxes they were carrying. When the soldiers started moving kegs into the building
, though, Myajes decided that it was obviously the camp’s mess.

Three other buildings had to be the officers
’ quarters. They were the smallest buildings in the camp but overflowing with personal touches. There were curtains in the windows, flowers in the gardens; even just the fact that they had gardens made it clear what the buildings were.

There were two other buildings. One had
Quartermasters
painted on its side, and there was no reason for Myajes to doubt that that was what it was. The other building seemed to be quite the mystery. There was nothing Myajes could see about it to tell its function. He was sure, though, that it couldn’t be big enough to hold all the Herbaht who had been taken prisoner.

It certainly looked more like an army camp than a prison camp. He noticed that those unloading the truck were wearing
Elite Guard uniforms, so even if he wasn’t in the right place he had at least found the right unit. He sniffed the air; if there were Herbaht in the camp he ought to be able to smell them. Nothing. Well, perhaps a vague residue; there had been Herbaht in the area recently, but obviously not in the camp itself. Chances were that they had chanced upon the camp by accident and left while they could. The scent was coming from somewhere behind the camp.