Skulk (27 page)

“Typical Rabble,” Don muttered. “Your brains can’t handle more than one thing at a time, can they? I never said I wanted to fight you. I just want some assurances before we try this scheme.”

I could have done a little dance right there, but I managed to control myself.

“How do I know you’re not playing some trick on us – you’ll convince us it’s worked and then come back and take it when we’ve gone?”

“You’ll be able to tell,” said Mo. “I swear on my mum’s life. Our stone went all shiny and translucent – maybe the Cluster stone will do something else, but if the Skulk do it together then none of the Rabble should be able to take it.”

“Then let’s try it,” said Don. “But if I find it’s disappeared again,
someone
will pay.” He bared his teeth at Mo and then at James. James shrugged it off with a smooth movement of his shoulders.

“Everyone, gather round,” said Susanne, and took off so she was fluttering above our heads.

As Fran, Randhir, Addie and Don gathered around the Cluster stone, I bent my head down so my muzzle was brushing the earth beside Marcus.

“Thanks,” I whispered.

Marcus gave a heavy sigh. “I know the type. Thinks he’s a big man.”

I nodded a little and joined the group.

It was sort of odd, seeing the whole Skulk gathered together, circling the gleaming stone. Even if it wasn’t ours – six shifters and a stone together felt... satisfying, like clicking a tricky jigsaw piece into its rightful place.

Except there was something missing. I could feel something tugging on me. It was like the feeling when you realise you don’t know exactly where you’ve put your keys, when your mind spins out of control imagining pickpockets and locksmiths and long, cold waits on the doorstep.

Maybe this wouldn’t work. The jigsaw piece was the wrong one, after all.

We still had to try, though.

I gazed around at them, wondering if they were having the same feeling, taking in Addie’s small frame next to Don’s big, dark-furred body, next to Rand’s shifty grey-tinged paws digging into the earth, next to Fran’s sleek stillness, next to the way James seemed to hang back, twitchy of getting too close despite his camp bravado. And then me – I still hadn’t really examined myself as a fox, but if it was anything like my human appearance it’d be long-furred, well-fed, and covered in bruises.

“Now, each touch one leg – well, paw I suppose – one paw to the stone,” said Susanne.

There almost wasn’t room. Don and James’ fur brushed mine.

“Shut your eyes and concentrate on the feeling of the stone.”

We did. It was smooth and cool, and a tiny bit grainy under my earth-splattered paw. Susanne’s voice was deep and calm.

“Try to clear your minds, just feel the air on your fur and the stone under your paws... imagine you’re reaching deep into it. Feel the gem part around your hand... you reach out and grasp part of the star... feel it tingling under your fingers...”

I could feel it. It
was
working. I could feel my fingers tingling, even though I didn’t even
have
fingers right then.

“Feel yourself holding the star in your hand. You can feel the power… the element of shadow. The star glows brighter. Bring it up, out through the surface of the gem. It flows out and envelops the stone like a net of blinding light, and digs deep into the earth. It keeps your stone safe, and shades it from the eyes of anyone but you.”

I could see it in my mind’s eye – the light flowing from the centre of the stone, glimmering across its surface and then piercing the ground like razor-sharp pins made of light and magic.

There was a silence.

“Erm...” said Mo.

“Keep your eyes closed,” said Susanne, her voice rather less deep and mellow. “Bring it to the surface... keep hold of the light, bring it up...”

“What’s going on?” said Addie. “I can’t feel anything.”

“Isn’t it working?” Fran asked.

“What?” said Don. “Let me see.”

There was a clamour.

“Don’t open your eyes!”

“Did you open them? Don?”

“Can I open my eyes now?”

I looked. Fran was looking already, and one by one the other three did too. The stone was still there. It wasn’t transparent or translucent. I reached out and nudged it with one paw.

Mo flapped over and landed on the stone. He could see it, all right. He hopped down on the ground and with a groan of effort he put his front legs on the side of the stone and pushed. It moved just a little bit.

“I can move it. It didn’t work,” he said.

Susanne started to say “We can try a–”

“I told you, these people don’t know what they’re talking about!” Don took his paw off the stone and jumped in the air, his teeth snapping dangerously close to Susanne’s wing.

“Hey, get off her,” Mo yelled, taking off and flying around Don’s ears. It can’t have done much more than tickle, but it clearly annoyed Don, who cringed back, pawing at his own face.

“Stop it, all of you! This isn’t your stone, there was always a chance it wouldn’t work,” said Susanne.

“No, I think you wanted to trick us. You wanted us to do it wrong so you could come back and take it,” Don growled.

“Don’t be absurd!” she cried. “Why would I? Mo, come away from there this instant.”

Mo darted out of Don’s reach and hung over my left shoulder, flapping agitatedly. “He could’ve killed you,” he complained.

Susanne landed on a thorn bush a little distance away. “I promise you, sir, I gave you the instructions I knew. It’s always worked for the Rabble. I’m sure the only reason it didn’t work for you is because you are not the Cluster.”

“Come on, Susanne, let’s go, if these ingrates don’t want our help,” Aaron complained.

“I don’t know why we trusted them,” Fran muttered to Don. “They can’t even take care of their
own
stone.”

“That’s not fair,” I said. “Their stone was taken by one of their own. It’s not their fault she was a junkie.”

“Wait...” Fran turned to me. “Are you saying one of
us
made this not work?”

I opened my mouth to say “no”, but then I hesitated. “I did feel something,” I said. “Didn’t the rest of you? I thought it was working, but–”

Don cut me off with a furious bark.

“James!”

“Don’t look at me. I brought it here, didn’t I? If I wanted it I would’ve kept it.”

“Why should I trust you, you admit you’re a–”

“Oh,
a what
, Olaye? Don’t pretend we don’t both know why you
really
can’t stand me.”

“Now, come on, let’s not get into this,” said Fran. “Surely we can agree to disagree. I mean we’re all entitled to our beliefs.”

James’ fur bristled and he hissed at them both. I cringed so hard I felt the fur on the back of my neck curl, wishing Fran would just
shut up
. I gazed at her for a second, so sleek and poised and supposedly friendly – and yet every time she spoke she seemed to make everything worse.

“Oi, guys.
Guys
.” It was Rand. He was staring at the sky. I followed his gaze.

A black speck was circling, shadowed against the grey-orange clouds overhead. Now there were two of them, now three, four, five... a whole
flock
of flapping, circling pigeons.

They dived.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Addie shrieked and flinched away as a pair of talons sliced through the air where she’d been standing. The clearing was engulfed in a storm of beating wings and stirred-up dust. Grey and brown and green streaked through the air, red and yellow eyes gleaming in the moonlight like horrid perversions of gemstones. They fell on us, pecking and tearing.

“Hide,” I yelped. The Rabble scattered. One of the pigeons was chasing Marcus, following his evasive twists and turns, and then suddenly he folded his wings and dropped to the ground. He rolled over and his whole body burst out of itself. His wings folded tight against his back and vanished, and his body smoothed and grew massive. He staggered to his feet, towering over all of us, as his antennae shrivelled back into his head. The pigeon flapped away, no match for a six-foot-plus human with muscles on his muscles. Marcus showed no sign of his nakedness bothering him in the slightest – he grabbed a fallen branch and swung it like a broadsword.

One of the pigeons tried to dive for the stone. I heard Addie give a furious hiss and saw it pulled down out of the air. “Protect the stone!” I growled. My heart hammered as I saw that Addie was the only one standing over it, but then Don thundered across the clearing, shrugging off the attacks of the pigeons, and stood protectively against her, his teeth bared.

“Meg!” James yelled. I looked around for him and then he collided with me, pushing me out of the way as a pigeon – a slick-feathered, thin, grey thing – went for my head. It shot past us with a sound like tearing paper.

“James, get the bag,” I hissed. “Get the Cluster stone out of here. Take it and run!”

James nodded and sprang for the black bag. The pigeon was coming back. She was diving for me. I felt the tears well up, unhelpful, unwanted, and useless.

“Mum,” I whined, even as I jumped into the air and batted her down with sheathed claws. She hit the ground with a thump and staggered dizzily for a second, but she was back up and flying after only a couple of seconds, wheeling away across the clearing.

“Mo?” Susanne yelled. She and Aaron were hiding deep inside a thorn bush – two pigeons were flapping and pecking at them but they couldn’t get past the twisted prison of twigs and sharp thorns. Susanne’s voice rose from their hiding place, high and panicked: “Where’s Mo?”

I felt like someone had grabbed my heart and squeezed until it burst.

“Mo!” I screamed.

“Help!”

A burst of yellow shot across my vision and I spun around, following in dismay as a huge grey-black pigeon hurtled after Mo, right on his wing-tips, its beak open, ready to snap down on him.

“Over here,” I yelled. Mo flipped over and shot back towards me. The black pigeon took the corner clumsily and came hurtling after him, screeching. I waited till I could smell the scent of foul decay on it, till I could see its tiny red worm tongue curling in its mouth. Then I leapt, claws out, and knocked it to the ground.

Its throat was right under my jaws, its head twisting back and forth... it would be so easy to rip it open. Even a simple, hard shake would break its neck. My lips drew back into a growl, my long canine teeth bared.

I twisted my head to catch the bright yellow spot that was Mo vanish into a thick thorn bush, and then reared back and let the pigeon go. It hobbled away, in pain, and tried to take off.

“Oh, for – let go, you–” I glanced around. James was gripping the black bag in his teeth, but a heavy, messy-feathered, brown-chested pigeon had landed right on top of it.
Dad
. James tried to pull the bag out from under him, but Dad went for James’ eyes with his sharp, wide beak. James let go of the bag to avoid being blinded and Dad took off, the bag dangling from his talons.

I twisted to look at Addie and Don, and sucked in a deep breath. They still had the Cluster stone. Addie was standing over it.

Aaron shot out of the bushes like a tiny brown bullet and circled Dad’s head. Dad flapped back and forth, a confusion of snapping beak and feathers.

“It’s just the bag, let it go!” I yelled.

I was too late. Aaron yelled, a hoarse and throaty cry of agony, and I felt my jaws go slack with horror, as my Dad’s beak pierced his wings and one of his legs. The pigeon’s eyes flashed as it deftly flicked Aaron up and into its beak. Aaron sucked in a gasp, and choked. The beak closed. Aaron went limp.

The body blossomed, ballooning out of Dad’s beak and thumping to the floor. I danced out of the way as Aaron’s wings crumpled and his body swelled, limp and broken, his back twisted horribly out of place, one leg barely hanging on at the knee by a few strings of muscle and cartilage.

“No, oh my God, Aaron...” Susanne wailed. I looked up just in time to see the pigeon that had once been my own father flapping away from the man he’d just killed, vanishing into the shadowy treetops.

My blood thundered in my ears. I gazed down at Aaron’s body. His skin gleamed almost blue and blood gushed blackly from his leg. Marcus ran over to him and then hesitated, sinking to his knees, not too close to the body. His eyes were wide and liquid with horror. His shoulders slumped.

Something hard and furry smacked into me and I fell to the ground. The scent of damp blankets and old bones told me it was Addie, before I could turn my head. “Meg! Are you deaf or what? I said get down!” Her jaws clamped gently but firmly around the scruff of my neck and pulled me down again, as another pigeon swept over, its wings scoring the air.

“Help!” Fran screamed. “Oh dear – help!”

Fran was all by herself and standing over the stone – the Cluster stone, which I’d been given to keep safe, which I’d walked through a river of blood to get back. I scrambled to my feet, pushing Addie aside. Fran was on her own, snapping and swiping at two viciously clawing pigeons. Why weren’t Don and James with her? They were being mobbed, standing back to back and fighting off four more. The pigeons had separated Fran from the others. “Help them,” I yelped to Addie, and she shot off trailing dirt and fury, barrelling into the crowd of pigeons like a bowling ball.

I ran towards Fran. I had to reach her, I had to – but determination gave me tunnel-vision and I didn’t see the pigeon swooping down on me until it was too late. I felt it smack into me, claws first, sending me rolling. I looked up, dizzy and sickened, into Mum’s crazy red pin-pricks of eyes. Her claws came down on my face and she clung on. I tried to bite her but she bucked out of my reach. I rolled and twisted and shook my head but Mum wouldn’t let go.

I could feel the freezing porcelain digging into my ribs as she held my head down, her sharp fingernails raking through my hair and across my scalp. Hot, thin vomit and stinging tears mingled in the bowl in front of me.

I howled and threw my head down, smacking Mum’s back hard into the ground. Her claws loosened and I tore my face away, grabbed her in my jaws and threw her as far as I could. Her wings snapped open and she soared off into the dark sky.