Monstrous Races (6 page)

‘A yale,’ said Rufus lazily. ‘They can move their horns and make good eating.'

They sped on through imposing alleys and beneath dark bridges, past buildings that were barely more than shacks and converted stables (‘now worth a premium,’ Rufus told her) until they finally reached their destination, a group of houses that seemed to have been dropped into the ground from a great height. The sun had set now, and in the evening darkness Rufus and Elli took their bags and got down from the cart. The road was deserted, and the only sign of life were the few lit candles that twinkled from the small windows. The cart moved on and left them standing alone with their bags.

‘Is this the right place?’ whispered Elli, looking around at the tall shadows and feeling the weight of the heavy silence. ‘Only it doesn’t seem too safe.’ Rufus smiled and held up his right hand to which every door in the road opened. People of all shapes and sizes ran out, dog-heads, humans, gorgades and others, all rushing towards them and shaking them by the hand or kissing them on the cheek. There were questions and excited faces from every angle, until at the back of the crowd a loud bark was heard.

A black
labrador
dog-head, wider and older than Rufus but unmistakeably his father appeared at the periphery and the group parted as he walked towards his son. He was dressed smartly with crisp, clean clothes and the fur on his face was grey around the muzzle. His left eye had a slight milky sheen to it, and he was powerfully built. He held up his hands towards Rufus and Elli saw a wide gold ring on his chubby finger. He grabbed Rufus
and held his face in his hands.

‘My boy everyone, he’s back. He’s come home!’

Elli lay on the sofa that morning and thought back to the night before, feeling the warmth of the stone against her chest as she always did. There was lots of food she remembered, and weak beer for her as well as fresh water. The neighbours had entered the house in a whirlwind, pinching her cheeks and telling her she needed feeding up. Madam Valencia was her favourite, a large buxom woman with hair dyed black and red cheeks, kissing her with red grease smeared on her lips. There were dog-heads and humans with pale skin and dark, and a smaller spaniel dog-head called Uncle Frankie who lifted Rufus into the air when he saw him. There was a family of four gorgades and some large dogs who were barking and running around wagging their tails.

Elli began to fall asleep in a corner when suddenly the laughter and excited chatter disappeared and everything was cleared away. In a daze she was kissed on the cheek again and felt warm hands stroke her hair. A deep dog-head voice said, ‘welcome to the family,’ and the next thing she remembered she was lying on the
chaise longue, covered with
soft blankets.

She stretched out and opened her eyes, looking around the room. There wasn’t a sign that all those people had come inside the night before, and the surfaces gleamed with polish. The room was large and tasteful, with ornate vases and oil paintings on the crimson walls. She looked for a long time at a religious dog-head picture, smiling at the swirls of colours and richness of shades. It depicted a tall, proud wolfhound dog-head appearing to walk towards her, his arms folded over his chest. His cloak was every rich red shade she could imagine, and he wore a jewelled collar that dazzled her with its shine. The silvers and golds, emerald green and amethyst
leapt
out at her, the detail as real to her as seeing it in the flesh. She hadn’t expected a room like this to be inside the house as there was no clue from the outside, and she moved closer to the painting, deep in thought.

‘St Christophe the wise,’ came a dee
p, powerful voice behind her. ‘I
t’s one of a kind.’ Elli jumped, shaken as she hadn’t heard Max come in.  ‘I’m sorry,’ he continued, ‘I didn’t mean to scare you. Of course it really belongs in a museum, but I’m so very attached to it.’

‘It’s lovely,’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it before.’

‘No, you wouldn’t have,’ he replied kindly, his gaze lingering on the painting. ‘Can you see how he has captured that look in the eye, somewhere between pride and regret. And see here, he is looking towards the light but the shadows are creeping in around his back. It drove the artist mad you know, for twenty years he worked on it, day and night. You see the necklace? He used real gold and silver, he wanted to capture them exactly so.’

‘It’s breathtaking,’ she said. ‘How long have you owned it?’

‘Owned?’ he asked, as though a spell had been broken. ‘Let’s just say I’m loaning it. As I said, it really belongs in a museum.’ She turned to see a glint in his eyes, as though he were judging her reaction. ‘Oh don’t worry, the one they have there is perfectly adequate. That took twenty days to paint but nobody even sus
pects. The philistines,’ he added
, sniffing the air around him.  ‘Didn’t even use real gold, it’s shocking.’ He stretched his hands out together and cracked his knuckles. ‘Now my girl, why don’t you make some tea, and then we’ll discuss what you’re really doing with my son.’

Elli made the tea as slowly as she could, willing Rufus to get his backside downstairs and talk with them. The kitchen was light and spacious, and she made a large bowl of tea for Max and a cup for her. With no way of stalling any longer she carried them in and sat down at the edge of the seat. He thanked her and looked at her closely, making no sound at all. Finally she broke, unable to take the silence any more. ‘We’ve left the Dogheadhood...for an adventure. I wanted to see more of the world and Rufus is my best friend, so he agreed to take me.’ Still nothing, and the silence sat between them like a flatulent guest.

‘Why?’ he asked
eventually
, not taking his gaze from hers. ‘Now why would he do that?’

‘We, well Alpha Sawyre I mean...’ She sat perched on the very edge of the seat now. ‘Can I wait for Rufus? He’ll tell you much better than I can.’ Max looked away from her.

‘No problem,’ he said, picking up the bowl and bringing it to his lips. ‘But you need to understand that he is my son. If he’s in some kind of trouble I want to know everything. And one of you will tell me.’ He sipped the tea and looked up. ‘And you’re going to have to learn how to make decent tea if you’ll be staying with us.'

Later on Max showed her to her room, and she marvelled at the shower and heated pump device that she could see from the window.

‘But you have your own shower with heat,’ she said. ‘In the garden. Just for you.’

‘Yes I do,’ he answered, ‘I believe in being very clean. There’s fresh soap in there every day, and the toilet cubicles are next to it, it means they’re hotter in winter.’ She looked out at the black box that contained a small burning fire. ‘I lit it a while ago so the water should be nice and hot now, I take it you know how to work a heating valve?’

She nodded and looked around at her room; it was three times as big as her room at the Dogheadhood and her bed was huge, covered in blankets that had been freshly aired. ‘Thank you Sir, I’m really very grateful,’ she said, meaning it.

‘Don’t mention it, and none of this Sir business. Just call me Max. After all, you’re part of the family now,’ he said, grinning. He exhaled slowly, looking back at the
door. ‘Some things never change I see. Rufus is still a lazy toad, I thought that at least all those years at the Dogheadhood would teach him how to get out of bed in the morning.’

‘If you don’t mind Max,’ she said smiling, ‘I know a brilliant way to get him up that he just loves.’

Rufus walked into the main room shortly afterwards, his wet footprints absorbed into the carpeted floor. He was drying the fur on his head with a towel, and was dressed in clean, smart clothes. ‘They still fit look,’ he said, obviously pleased with himself. ‘The trousers are a bit tighter than I remember, but not bad at all.’ He crashed down into an armchair and looked across at them both. ‘Another lovely walk-up call from Elli then, the bump on
my head is really hurting now,’ he moaned, delicately touching
the protrusion at the top of his head. ‘Please remember there are beams above the bed next time. Any chance of some food?’ he asked, rubbing the inside of his ears with the towel. Max grimaced and looked at the watery prints.

‘Well, firstly you’ll need to clear them up. Then you’ll wash that towel and hang it out to dry. Then you can make some food for us all, and clean up after yourself. And after that,’ he said, leaning in closer, ‘you can tell me exactly what's going on.’

Max stared at the fyrestone for a long, long time, turning it around in his hands and watching how the tiny sparks of light circled and danced around it; he could see the milky opal and blue streams of colour gently move around each other, reflected in his wide eyes as he held it up. ‘It's so beautiful,’ he said, his voice tender and sin
cere. ‘Such an astonishing thing
. I’ve never seen anything quite...’

‘Max,’ said Rufus, snatching it back quickly and throwing it over to Elli, ‘listen to what we’re saying. We need to know if Elli's in any kind of danger. We thought you might know.'

‘Me?’ asked Max, sitting back into his seat. ‘Well I can ask the right people I suppose, see who's heard what. There can’t be too many of these stones dotted around can there? So that makes them rare and...valuable,’ he added, his eyes shining.

‘No,’ said Elli firmly, tucking the necklace back inside her clothes. ‘It’s my stone and I won’t be parted wi
th it. Certainl
y not for money.’

‘It’s not money that worries me, although hold that thought,’ said Rufus. ‘We need to know if there's word on the street about this stone or any others, find out who has the other one if you can. Do it quietly Max, we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.’

‘You?’ he asked looking at his son. ‘That’ll be a first. Let me speak with Uncle Frankie, I’ll just tell him you stole it.’ He looked down at Elli as her eyes grew wider. ‘Relax, that’s fine with him, a good family tradition.' He stood up slowly and lifted himself to his full height. ‘Why don’t you pay a visit to some old friends Rufus, hmm?’

When Max had gone Elli walked over again to the painting of St Christophe.

‘You never mentioned your life before the Dogheadhood, why not? How do you go from this place to there?’ she asked, her eyes fixed on the painting. Rufus stood up and walked over to her side.

‘It’s a different life, I didn’t think they’d understand. Not really. And we’re close in this family, we look out for each other. We’re all family in this street, oh not related in blood, but we take care of our own,’ he added, tilting his head and staring more closely at the shimmering collar of St Christophe. ‘Oh will you look at that, Max got the colour of that stone there wrong,’ he said, peering closely. ‘I knew he should have used a deeper shade of green.'

They rode in silence on a horse that Max owned and put it in a large, well-equipped stable towards the centre of the town. Rufus jumped down gracefully whilst Elli h
eaved and panted, getting off
the horse in an ungainly way and catching her foot in the stirrup. She looked up into the upside-down face of the stable boy, who smiled broadly.

‘Need a hand?’ he asked, holding his arms outstretched ready to collect her from the hay-strewn floor.

‘I’m fine,’ she answered breathlessly, unhooking her fo
ot and landing with a thump in
damp straw.

‘It's alright Miss, no problem,’ he said, clasping her hand in his and pulling her to her feet. He reached into her hair and pulled out some straw. ‘You might just want to wash your face before....’

‘No time,’ said Rufus grinning, 'we’re in a bit of a rush.’

They walked up the marble steps of the Council House, with Elli asking Rufus everything she could think of about his life before the Dogheadhood.

‘But what I still don’t understand is what brought you there in the first place? I mean, did you suddenly wake up and have a conscience or was it a holy visitation, or what?’

‘Oh, I suppose you could cal
l it a holy visitation,’ he answered
, reaching th
e huge doors and walking inside. ‘D
efinitely one of those. I picked the pocket of a very important dog-head. I was, for all my sins, rather good at it. Most people had no idea it had happened until they went to pay for something, maybe days later. This one whirled me around by my ears, tripped me up and collapsed on top of me, asking very calmly for assistance. I was caught red-handed and thrown into the cellars.’

‘Wow,’ she said, following him inside. ‘And did you repent in there, is that how it happened?’

‘Not really,’ he replied breezily. ‘I met up with some of the family in there and we had a good laugh about it. Of course, that was when you could mix with everyone down there. It was actually quite pleasant; we smuggled in some fresh meat, got a small fire going...’

‘So how did that change you?’ she interrupted, following him down a long, clean corridor.

‘It didn’t. She did. Alpha Sawyre came to see me. She told me about the Dogheadhood and said that there was a better way, that I could change and do good things. She changed my life that day.’

‘I hadn’t realised,’ said Elli, touched by his tale of spiritual awakening and lost inside the maze of corridors.