Skulk (15 page)

I couldn’t get out. She was going to find there was no stone and give the signal and I’d be pecked to death by my own parents, right here, pressed into the new leather seats. I’d die bleeding into Victoria’s foot-wells, shreds of my skin scattered across the darkened windows. She wasn’t going to let me out.

I yanked at the buttons on my shirt and tore it off. The pigeons flapped and cooed, but a terrified moment of staring out of the window told me Victoria couldn’t hear them. She was inspecting a hole in the fence. I managed to undo my bra on the second try and then leaned into the front seat, running my hands over everything in search of something hard that I could pick up. I fumbled into the glove compartment and my heart pounded in my chest – there was an ice scraper with a hard, pointy end.

I grasped it and pulled back to the passenger window. I took a split second to brace myself, gather my strength. The instant I hit the window Victoria would know. I’d have no more than a handful of seconds to make a hole big enough and change.

I felt a pinching, stabbing pain on my elbow and yelped as looked back. Mum had pecked me, hard, and drawn blood. I gripped the ice scraper like a dagger, and stabbed. The window cracked, but stayed in place. A moan escaped my throat and I stabbed again, and again, until finally the window shattered into a hundred chunky pieces of glass. They sagged out but hung on to the window frame, held together by the tinted layer of plastic.

“Hey!” Victoria’s shout rang out, muffled, outside the car. “Stop her!”

Another shove with the ice scraper sent the whole shattered pane of glass toppling out onto the floor and I twisted into fox shape just as the pigeons’ claws came down, raking across my back. I felt deep wells of pain open up in my flesh, jolting energy through me as my perspective shifted. The colours faded, and the scent of blood and foulness overwhelmed me.

My back legs scrabbled for a grip on the shiny leather even as they were still forming, and I pushed up and out, tumbling half-changed through the window. My tail burst from my back and my hands shrunk into paws, just as I came down hard on the shattered glass on the road. I stumbled, one of the shards slicing through my right front paw pad, but I heard Victoria shriek with rage and the flapping of two pairs of wings, and I didn’t stop to look back.

I sprint-hobbled down Victoria Embankment, half-blinded by pain, in and out of the slanting shadows. There had to be a way off the road, somewhere I could hide, somewhere I would be safe...

I ducked under a bench, almost on pure instinct, and a second later, a fluttering thump hit the slatted wood over my head. There was a hoarse croak and a shower of foul-scented dust, and I looked up to see a snapping grey beak and one mad red eye.

Mum.

I opened my jaws and hissed, and she snapped at me again. I could feel blood trickling though my fur. This wasn’t safe. I couldn’t stop.

But Mum...

“Please,” I whined. “Mum, don’t you know me? Can’t you...”

I stopped myself. There was no point. She wasn’t really Mum right now. I’d find a way to put this right, I
had
to, but right now she would kill me if I let her.

I took a second to lap at the wound on my paw, and then braced myself to spring out of my hiding place.

I shot out from under the bench and ran straight into a warm, feathery mass – the heavier, mouldier pigeon that was now my Dad. He pecked at my flank and I swiped, my claws springing out by instinct. I felt one of them catch, and Dad fell back with a burst of feathers. My paw ripped away, a few drops of fresh blood trailing through the air after it.

Oh God. Dad!

A fresh wave of horror hit me.

Dad, I’m so sorry. Please be all right. You shouldn’t be here. This is all my fault. I’m sorry…

Pigeon-Dad twisted back, black beak open wide. I got a split-second’s glimpse of a freakishly pink tongue lashing like a worm on a hook, before he went for my eyes. I twitched away just in time and took off running again.

My heart felt broken, like it was hanging loose and useless in my chest. Like I’d died, and I just hadn’t stopped moving yet.

There! Finally, I saw hope open up in front of me. A hole, a blessed, heaven-sent hole, right at the base of one of the buildings. It looked like it was supposed to have a metal grille across it, but it was open and dark. It smelled of dust and things that snuffled and scurried as I threw myself inside. It was just wide enough to take me, and so dark I might have been about to knock myself out on a dead end and I wouldn’t know it, except that I could feel air rushing through my fur, stirring the sensitive hairs around my muzzle.

The pigeons were right on my tail, but the tunnel wasn’t wide enough for them to flap their wings, so they were reduced to a bobbing hop, and I gained ground quickly. The tunnel grew cold and damp, and the scent of rats grew stronger, and I pressed on until suddenly I could see an orange glow. Literally, a light at the end of the tunnel. I put on a burst of speed and stumbled out into a vast space. I’d come out in the curved side wall of a tunnel with dim electric lights strung on the walls and metal rails along the ground that stank of electricity and grease and a black, sticky kind of dust.

This was a tube tunnel. Some deep-down part of my brain that apparently didn’t have enough to worry about supplied:
probably the District and Circle lines
. I turned right and scampered up the tracks as fast as my aching muscles would take me.

CHAPTER TWELVE

It was dark when I finally climbed out of Tower Hill tube station. I slipped between the feet of puzzled commuters and under the Oystercard barriers before the staff could react, and huddled in the bushes outside the station for a few minutes, catching my breath and hoping that nobody had called the RSPCA. The last thing I needed right now would be to be snatched up and imprisoned in some wildlife centre with a bunch of actual foxes.

I made my way to the Tower in short sprints, darting my way from shadow to shadow across the road and down the slope towards the gate and the drawbridge. A few straggling groups of tourists were still hanging around outside the entrance to the Tower, but the gate itself was shut. I hopped over the low wall around the moat and trotted down the blessedly soft, damp, grassy slope. I could circle the tower and get in through the holes in the portcullis across Traitor’s Gate. It was a bit of a tight squeeze and I hissed in pain as the metal of the gate scraped over the wounds on my back, but then I was in.

It was obvious why Blackwell had smelled the way he did. Every corner of this place gave off the scent of old stone, old, wet wood and new varnish. If history itself had a smell, this place reeked of it.

I climbed the steep steps and slipped through the wooden gate that kept tourists from going down to the moat level. The stone was smooth and cool under my sore paws, dented by time and millions of visiting shoes. I was limping, one paw pad still stinging from the shattered glass, but even that felt better on the stone.

The raven cages were in the centre, near the base of the White Tower. I padded up to them with a growing sense of dread. I could see a group of dark shapes inside, pecking at their feed.

This didn’t feel right. Why would a shifter live like that? But I couldn’t see any Warders around, and I couldn’t dismiss the idea that one of them might be able to help me.

Feeling self-conscious, I crossed the courtyard and slipped under the metal chain onto the patch of grass, passed an enormous black iron cannon and drew near the cages.

“Um, excuse me,” I said.

The ravens ignored me.

“Excuse me? I need to talk to someone – I need to talk to Blackwell, is he here?” I took another step forward and one of the ravens flapped over to the front of the cage. It tipped its head and opened its beak, but all that came out was a long, loud caw.

Suddenly, as if at its signal, the cages came alive with flapping, cawing and croaking. I stumbled away, my heart racing, my fur prickling all along my back. I heard a door slam behind me and I tried to spin around, but put too much weight on my wounded paw and fell onto my side, blinded by pain for a moment.

When my vision cleared I saw a tall human shape hurrying towards me, thick woollen overcoat unbuttoned and flapping in the wind. The ravens quieted to an anxious background flap as the man hopped the metal chain and skidded to a halt a few feet away.

It was a Yeoman Warder. Deep blue coat that looked black in the darkness, dim brown trimming I knew was really red, flat cap in the same colours.

“Meg?” said the man. He leaned down and the shadows under his hat shifted so I could see his face.

It was the strangest feeling, like meeting a close relative of someone you know well – there was a shock of recognition along with the certain knowledge that I’d never seen this face before.

He had a thin face and pale, wrinkled skin, with a short ginger beard and small, light grey eyes.

“Margaret Banks? It’s Arthur Blackwell,” he said. He had a soft voice and a Scottish accent.

I twitched as the door behind him banged open again. But Blackwell twitched too, threw a glance over his shoulder, then turned back to me with urgency in his eyes.

“Please, hide,” he hissed. “Get under the cannon and don’t come out till I say. Please, it’s very important.”

I hesitated a split second. Then I did what I was told.

I wormed my way under the huge iron cannon with my belly flat to the grass. The underside of the gun was deep in shadow, and it smelled of paint and a far-off, possibly imaginary echo of blood and gunpowder. All I could see was Blackwell’s boots, polished and gleaming in the damp grass. They turned and shuffled to attention, and a few minutes later another pair of boots – identical, but slightly larger – stepped into view.

“What’s the alarm, Blackwell?” said a man’s deep voice. I smelled cigarettes and expensive brandy, and wet wool and leather from both their uniforms.

“False alarm, sir,” said Blackwell. “A cat. Just a stray. It spooked when the ravens sounded the alarm and ran off.”

“They’re a little sensitive this week,” said the other voice.

“Yes, sir. Perhaps it’s the weather.”

Even from here, I could tell the other man was sceptical. He shifted his weight and made a “hrm” noise in his throat. “Old wives’ tale. You should be careful what you believe, Blackwell – you sound like you’ve been talking to the Rabble.”

So this was the leader of the Conspiracy. Why did Blackwell need me to hide from him? I wished I could’ve seen his face.

“Is there anything else?” said the man.

“No, sir. All’s well, sir.”

I frowned. All was not within a hundred miles of well.

“All right,” he said. “Carry on, Blackwell.”

Blackwell’s boots slid together and his knees locked. I was pretty sure he’d saluted.

“Yes, sir.”

I waited, breathing in the cool fumes from the cannon, until Blackwell’s stance relaxed.

“Come on out, Meg,” he said. I slunk out of my hiding place and looked up at him. He took off his hat and wiped his sleeve across his forehead. “We need to talk.”

The inside of the Yeoman Warders’ accommodation – part exclusive apartments, part barracks – smelled of varnished wood, tradition, leather and polished swords. Its scent was overwhelmingly male, though I was pretty sure there were a few female Warders nowadays. It was so thoroughly steeped in routine I could almost have traced the criss-crossing paths of the different Warders through the air.

Blackwell sneaked me inside at his heels and let me into his apartment, disappeared for a few nerve-shredding minutes and came back with a pile of clothes in his arms. He put them down in the bathroom – a neat, gleaming place with lots of wood panels, gold taps and polished mirrors – and said we could talk properly when I’d changed.

The change hurt.

I crouched in the gap between Blackwell’s bath and his toilet, pressing my head into the wall and groaning. My legs splayed out on the cold tiles. I flung a still-fuzzy arm over the cool white bath and clung on while the change flowed through me.

The wounds on my back and my paw were changing with me, stretching out along with my skin. Each one stung like – well, like a rough hand stretching an open wound. Tears sprang to my eyes and I twisted my unhurt hand in my hair as it cascaded out of my head and settled on my shoulders.

When it was over, I struggled to my feet and turned, wrapping my arms around myself, to look at the damage in the bathroom mirror. Three small cuts on my back – much, much smaller than they felt from the inside – a scrape on my elbow and one puncture wound on my hip. There was a thin layer of caked-on gore around each one. The one on my left shoulder-blade was oozing fresh, red blood when I moved.

My parents did this
.

I scraped my hair back from my face, as if I could brush the thought away.

No. Victoria did this.

The cut on my hand was longer, but not deep. I ran it under the cold tap and bit back my moans until the flesh went numb.

I picked through the pile of clothes Blackwell had brought me. There was a pair of pants and a bra that were slightly too small, but not so much they were painful – except where the bra strap ran over the open wound. I wondered where he’d got them, as I adjusted the straps to be as loose as possible. Maybe they were his girlfriend’s. Giving me his girlfriend’s underwear was kind of creepy. Then again, I was bleeding on another woman’s bra. That was pretty creepy too.

The other clothes fit pretty well. I slipped into the pair of black trousers – cotton-nylon blend, with no pockets, a white T-shirt screenprinted with a picture of the crown jewels, and a large hooded jumper with the Historic Royal Palaces logo stitched on the breast.

I glanced at myself in the mirror before I went out. I was bleeding, my parents were pigeons, I was wearing another woman’s pants, and the rest of my clothing had clearly been stolen from the Tower of London souvenir shop. But I was alive. And I was going to get help.

I opened the door and stepped out into Blackwell’s apartment. Even though I’d spent a few minutes in there as a fox, I’d not really taken it in – it had just been a blur of scents and textures under my paws.