Skulk (10 page)

Over the large fox’s shoulder, the other two watched. The other male was smaller, wiry, and almost all grey. The female looked sleek and poised, and had a white patch running down her muzzle.

“My name is Don Olaye,” said the large fox. “This is the Skulk. You are the girl who took the shift from Ben Cohen.”

“Um, yes.”

He lowered his head till it was level with mine and his lips drew back.

“You will tell us what you saw,” he snarled.

“Oi,” the other male fox snapped. “There’s no need for that.”

Don didn’t move his gaze from me. “One of the Skulk is dead, Randhir, don’t you think we ought to question the only person who was there?”

“It could’ve been an accident. How did Fran get her shift? How did I? She’s just a teenager!” The other male – Randhir – trotted up to us. He didn’t quite get between Don and me, but he sat close enough that Don couldn’t fail to acknowledge his presence. The larger fox’s body language shifted and he drew himself up, looking imperiously down his nose at me.

“I’m Rand, love,” said Randhir. “And that’s Francesca. You’ve met Addie. And James.”

Don’s top lip peeled back and his ears pointed down and towards me, anger and disapproval coming off him in waves.

“Answer my question please,” he interrupted. “What happened to Ben Cohen?”

“We want to welcome you here,” Fran put in, padding up to stand on Don’s right. “We just need to know what happened to our friend. Can you tell us about it?”

I glanced at Addie. I’d rather talk to her than either of these two – Don was still looming over me and Fran was talking like a nurse trying to coax a child to explain how the Lego block got up its nose. Rand sat back and scratched himself behind the ear with his hind paw.

“It was a couple of days ago – about three in the morning. I was at school.”

“Why?” Don demanded.

“I... I was...” I hesitated. But then a mutinous streak flared up in me. What was the harm in telling the truth? What was he going to do to me? He wasn’t my mother, or my head teacher. And I didn’t want this part of my life to be built on lies, like everything else I did. “I was painting graffiti on the wall,” I said. My heart raced. I’d never told anyone straight out like that before – other than on the internet, which hardly counted. Don growled, deep in his chest, but Fran nudged him and he quieted. I stole a look at Addie. Her head quirked to one side.

“What happened then?” she asked.

“I turned around and there was this fox, and it was hurt – and I wanted to see if I could help, except... then it turned into a man, right in front of me. He’d been hurt. Stabbed, I think, in the chest. He died, and I ran away. He didn’t tell me anything about this – I didn’t know what was going on till the next night. I was out with some friends and I got mugged and turned into a fox by accident.”

“Where’d you say your school was, love?” Rand asked.

“I didn’t – I mean, it’s in Kensington,” I said.

“She’s a princess,” Addie put in helpfully.

“I am not–” I snapped, and then caught the look in Addie’s eyes.

Oh, so you’re trolling me
. I stuck my tongue out at her. She gave me a panting grin, lay down on her stomach and licked her paws.

“Adeola,” Don snapped. “Someone is dead. Please be serious.”

“Oh, like you were such a fan of Ben in the first place,” Rand muttered.

“He was one of us,” Don said. “That’s all there is to it.”

“But what was he doing in a girl’s school in Kensington?” Fran frowned.

I shook my head. “I asked if he… if he had anyone I should tell, you know, that he died. He just told me to...”

I stopped.

I don’t know if it was Don’s overbearing scowl, or Fran’s wide, concerned eyes, but I decided to keep the sapphire to myself. Just a
little
longer. Nobody here apparently knew anything about it – nobody had said anything about any stone.

“He told me to watch out for the fog,” I said.

“What did he mean by that?” Don mused.

“He must’ve been delirious. You said he was stabbed, I certainly don’t think fog could have cut him,” Fran said, slowly, as if explaining to a small child.

“No, I saw it. When I was with James the other night. It was like... fog that was
alive
. I felt it pull my tail!” They all gave me blank looks, so uniform they were almost comical. “Didn’t James mention it?”

Don growled again. “James is a traitor, a liar, and a thief. And no, he didn’t mention it.”

“I… oh.” I thought of the little rattling bag he’d been carrying when we ran from the fog. But that didn’t change what I’d seen and felt...

“Well,
anyway
,” Fran sighed, bowing her head slightly, “if you don’t know anything more about what happened to Ben, I suppose there’s nothing we can do. Perhaps he was simply mugged, or involved in some kind of fight.”

I didn’t think so. Unless he’d been the mugger, and got hurt while stealing the giant sapphire from someone else.

I hadn’t thought of that before.

I wriggled uneasily.

“If we’re finished, Don?” Fran asked. Don sat back on his haunches, drawn up tall, and nodded once. “Then let me welcome you to the Skulk, Meg,” said Fran. She stepped forward and sniffed at my muzzle, touching her nose to mine. She smelled strongly of expensive soap, like my mum used. Rand ducked close, but didn’t actually brush against me; he stank of petrol and cigarette smoke. Addie stepped up and nudged me in the shoulder with the top of her head, affectionately, but hard enough to make me wobble.

I caught my breath. If I’d been human, my face would’ve been turning bright red. Even considering that Don was still looking at me as though I’d done something deeply suspicious, this was probably the most welcomed I’d been anywhere since I left Brownies when I was ten. I had no idea if the feeling could be read on my fox face, but I found myself shuffling my paws and turning my face away from the others.

“Thank you,” I murmured.

“You are one of us now,” said Don. “And so you must live by our rules.”

Rand’s ears flew back and he growled. “Not this rubbish again.”

Don’s head snapped around and he bared his teeth at Rand. Rand looked small, skinny and scruffy next to Don, but he stood his ground.

“I’ve had enough of your tongue today, Randhir,” Don snarled.

“And I’ve had enough of your rules,” snapped Rand. He turned to me. “Don’t you listen to him, Meg. He makes them up to suit himself. Nobody ever elected you leader of us, mate.”

“The Skulk has been in my family for a hundred years.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot, because you haven’t mentioned it in ten minutes. Your father was a shifter before you, and his father before him, and his father walked fifty miles to school in the snow uphill each way and lived in a cardboard box,” Rand sneered. “It don’t make you better than us, kid.”

“Randhir,” said Fran, in a voice like grease on a squeaky door, “please, let’s not argue about this.” She glanced at me, and back at him. Her yellow eyes narrowed, the first time they’d been anything but wide and full of concern. I guessed she meant
not in front of the new girl
. “Don’s rules are quite sensible.”

“Don’s rules are
bollocks
,” Rand sniffed. “He makes them up to suit himself, but, God forbid
any one of us amend them slightly...”

“Your wife’s cooperation is not crucial to the survival of the Skulk. You should never have told her,” Don barked.

“Now, Don, we’ve been over this. Rand said he was sorry,” said Fran.

“I did not.”

The three of them turned in on each other, snarling and bearing their teeth, leaving Addie and me on the outside. I backed off. They didn’t notice.

“It’s pretty crucial if you want me to keep coming to your precious meetings. She thought I was shagging around!”

“You should have thought of a better explanation.”

“Why should I not tell my
wife
about something like this? What harm could it do?”

“Because the more people who know, the more complicated this becomes.”

“Just because your sister couldn’t cope,” Rand snarled. “I don’t blame her, either, from what I’ve heard...”

Don’s hackles shot up and he bared his teeth at Rand. “You leave my sister out of this.”

“Please, let’s try to see each other’s point of view,” said Fran.

I turned to Addie. “Are – are they always like this?”

She looked at me with a hangdog expression, then jerked her head and slunk away to the other side of the clearing. I followed. The others didn’t stop arguing, or seem to notice we’d moved away.

“Yeah. It’s not Don’s fault,” she said. “It’s not easy to lead a bunch of foxes that don’t want to be led. I’d
never leave the Skulk, but... some days I don’t blame James for refusing to show.”

I watched the three foxes – Don and Rand literally snapping at each other’s throats now, and Fran wheedling at them like they were naughty children – and my heart sank like a stone. This was the Skulk. My amazing new world. It was a selfish thief, one young girl, and three bickering adults.

I caught my breath. My eyes were wet.

It was ridiculous. I guess I didn’t realise how much I’d been hoping that I’d walk into this world and find... what? A whole new family? A ready-made group of friends to have wacky adventures with?

I felt so stupid.

“Aw, don’t feel bad,” Addie said. “It’s not always like this. New people stir Don up. Fran was the last one in before you and he was just like this. He gets hacked off with everything cause he can’t actually be God and stop people from dying, and then he takes it out on Rand because Rand doesn’t know when to shut up. But he’ll come around to you, long as you don’t get in his face and disrespect him. Believe.”

“I just... I was looking forward to finding out more about all this. I mean, why is this happening to us? Why can we do this? Why are there six of us, and not more or less?”

“Well, sorry, but even Don doesn’t know that,” Addie shrugged. “He says there’s something important about meeting in this place, but I think he’s just parroting what his dad told him.”

“This place?” I looked around at the messy, overgrown clearing. It didn’t look like anything special.

“Look,” Addie said, scratching her side against a nearby tree, “Normally Don tries to run this like a church group or something, and we hang out and talk for a bit, but... I don’t think this is going to be one of those times. You wanna slope off? We can tell them you’ve got to get home. I can walk you.”

“Yeah, I think that’d be good,” I said.

I stood back as Addie managed to slide in between the three foxes – still arguing fiercely – to let Don know we were going. He turned and looked at me and, for a second, I thought he seemed upset. Then his eyes went hard again, and he nodded.

“We’ll see you next week,” he said.

“Yes,” I replied.

We walked back up the tunnel of weeds towards the road. I glanced back, but the Skulk was already lost in the tangle.

CHAPTER EIGHT

As we were walking under the huge flyover roundabout, between the trailer park and the sports centre, Addie stopped.

“Are you all right on your own from here?” she said. “It’s just kind of out of my way to go any further. My den’s really nearby.”

Her den?
I wondered if it was human slang, like crib, or if I’d come to call my house that when I’d been a shifter for a while.

“Oh – yes, I think so,” I said.

“Just go on down the main road and then you’re on Holland Park Avenue. Turn off at the Hilton, you can’t miss it. Or spend the night there,” she added, cheekily, “I bet five stars is like home, right, Princess?”

I laughed and snapped my teeth playfully beside her ear. I pulled back at once, afraid I’d overstepped – it’d been pure instinct. But maybe she’d be offended, or scared?

Addie panted, happily. “See you next week,” she said, and trotted away without looking back.

The journey down the main road was scarier without Addie there, knowing exactly where it was safe to walk. Cars roared past dragging hot waves of stinking air along behind them, dulling my senses. I half-felt my way along the hard shoulder, pressing myself to the metal barrier just in case.

I wasn’t unhappy, though. The Skulk may have been a bit of a disappointment, but – not to jump way ahead of myself, or anything, not to be overconfident, not to assume anything – I thought I’d made a friend.

The warm glow followed me down to the Holland Park Roundabout, up behind the Hilton, and along Holland Park Road. I decided to take the shortcut home – what was the harm, while I was still a fox? – and headed off the road between two embassies.

My pace slowed as I got closer and closer to home, and I was dawdling down a Kensington back-street, lined with little boutiques, jewellers and shoe shops, when something scuttled across my path.

The spider.

It stopped right in front of me. It was the same one. I tried not to shiver. With my fox eyes I could see it was very dark brown, its legs spindly and covered in miniscule hairs, its abdomen striped with tiny lines of a lighter brown colour. Tiny brown fangs poked out from the front of its face and eight shiny black eyes circled its head. It crouched low to the ground, its eight knees high in the air over its body. I couldn’t get much of a smell from it – there was something totally alien about its scent that made me think of
fast
, and
very still
. I guessed that just meant I’d never smelled
spider
before.

“Hey, Skulk girl,” it said. It was male – it wasn’t the sound of its voice that told me, more a feeling, resonating somewhere near the back of my skull. My ears twitched.

“You’ve been following me,” I growled at the spider.

The spider’s fangs chipped together, exasperation in its voice. “I needed to talk to you. I was waiting for you to change, but I couldn’t go outside when the pigeon was there and then you ran off with the other girl from the Skulk before I could get to you.” The spider’s back legs scraped the ground anxiously. “My name is Angel. I need to talk to you about the stone, the one you left in your locker.”