The Origami Dragon And Other Tales (14 page)

‘I think I’ll
call you Feather,’ I told him, patting him comfortingly on one
massive shoulder and trying to keep away from the gun’s barrel.

It was almost
ten in the morning before I managed to convince Feather that it was
safe to go outside. I bought him a pastry for breakfast, although I
myself was limited to coffee and fruit juice, a diet I do not
recommend to anyone. I told him my name was Rob, although at the
time this was an alias, as I had no real name. We shook hands and
normality returned to the day as we talked about the weather, the
French, and the best polish to use for silver.

Then Feather
explained that he was assembling a team to hunt down the werewolf
and was a man short.

‘This
wolf-spawn has better smell than its kin who, as you know, are
remarkable in that regard. It seems he can smell gun oil from a
mile away, so we can’t use guns. That was my mistake last time.
Without guns, we have to resort to the old methods. Bows, spears,
swords. You know, the classics.’

I had only ever
hunted wolves using guns, which was relatively easy as long as they
didn’t close too quickly. Hunting without guns sounded dangerous
and challenging. I was intrigued.

‘You get a
quarter of the cash if we get him,’ he offered.

It was a lot of
money.”

“A
lot
of money,” I said to Rob, “but why did he pick you? Weren’t there
hundreds of freelancers to choice from?”

“I asked him
that,” agreed Rob, “and he just smiled knowingly, which is one of
his more annoying habits. I asked him who the other members of the
team would be.

He said, ‘I’m
meeting them for a late lunch. Join us if you are interested.’

The offer was
exciting. I prefer bows to guns, but mostly I prefer to out-think
my opponents rather than out-fight them. I prefer my victories
quiet and bloodless, and this looked like it would be neither. It
was on this basis that I determined to leave town as soon as
possible.”

Rob waited
patiently as I rubbed disinfectant over the cuts on his face. I
knew his story wasn’t finished.

“I had decided
to leave town,” Rob continued, “and was therefore very surprised to
find myself standing outside the restaurant Feather had mentioned.
I honestly don’t know what had drawn me to the place, but perhaps I
was just at a loose end. It wasn’t like I had anywhere else to be.
I took my time to check that the building wasn’t being watched. I
walked in, and saw Feather sitting at a corner table. He waved me
over, and I took the spare chair next to him, wondering why I was
there.

Feather’s only
companion was a small man with long dreadlocks. He wore a tweed
suit. The man’s skin was of the deepest black-blue, but his face
was covered in thin, horizontal white scars. They looked to me like
ritual scarring, but I couldn’t be certain. He greeted me with a
dazzling white smile. One of his teeth was tipped with silver. He
shook my hand but said nothing at all. He was vaguely familiar.
Feather introduced the man as Stripes, our magical strongman.

The waiter
arrived, and we ordered a round of drinks.

‘Rob here is
going to help us,’ said Feather.

‘Aye,’ said
Stripes in a thick Scottish accent.

He must have
noticed my surprise, or maybe he was just used to explaining his
accent.

‘My daddy,
Gods-rest-him, grew rich by smuggling weapons. He said he wanted to
buy me the best education the world could offer, so he sent me ta’
the kingdom to live with my uncle. I grew up in Scotland before
heading back to the jungles of my ancestors.’

I didn’t ask
Stripes what kind of weapons his father smuggled, or what had
happened to him. I had the sinking feeling that I knew all too
well. You see, Doctor, it had been only a few years before meeting
Stripes that I had been part of the operation that brought down a
group of Congolese smugglers in Scotland. At the time I had been
proud, because the things they were smuggling should never have
been allowed out of the cave they were found in. Our actions saved
lives, but the cost had been a number of deaths on both sides.

‘Do we have a
fourth?’ I asked, keen to change the subject from who might have
done what to whose father.

The fourth
chair was empty. Feather waved at it for a second, and spat out a
long name in a language I didn’t recognise. The phantom of a man
dropped into it from the ceiling, falling quickly and then stopping
suddenly when he hit the wood. The man was short and thin, with
elegant features and long ears. I realised I was looking at an elf.
I had never seen one before and had heard only nasty rumours about
them.

‘As I said, the
wolf broke a few elfish necks. Sithere was an unlucky bystander, so
he chose to haunt the wolf to get his own back. His spirit has been
keeping tabs on the wolf, which is why we know he will be passing
through this town soon. This puts us ahead of the game, I would
say.’

The spectre of
Sithere was pulled back into the ceiling and disappeared. I didn’t
know what being a ghost was like, but judging from Sithere’s face
it must be unpleasant.

‘What does the
ghost plan to do with his share of the money?’ asked Stripes.

‘Buy a new
body,’ answered Feather.

‘Aye,’ said
Stripes, as if this made perfect sense.”

“Is that even
possible?” I demanded from Rob, who just shrugged.

“Don’t ask me,
Doctor, I don’t know much about Elves. I do know how to hunt a
werewolf, though, and there is only one way it can go down. At full
moon our target would be fully transformed into his animal form,
and his animal instincts would be at their strongest. Werewolves
are always hungry and have an excellent sense of smell. An animal
carcass would attract them, but the smell of hunters would scare
them off. I went back to the room I was hiring and took a long
shower, washing myself thoroughly with unscented soap. My next stop
was at a local farm, where I bought a sheep. We met that night in a
nearby forest. Feather killed the sheep quickly and humanely, and
then handed me a vial of its blood to spread on my clothes.
Macabre, I know, but it would overpower my own scent.

The rest of the
carcass he left in the centre of a forest clearing. Feather had
supplied me with an excellent yew bow and twenty arrows to go with
it. He was armed with an enormous bronze shield, helmet sword and
spear. He looked every inch the hoplite. Stripes was hovering
around the outside of the clearing, doing whatever it was he did. I
had my reservations about him, both personally and professionally,
but Feather trusted him. The plan was for Stripes to attack the
wolf with nets while Sithere distracted it, and Feather and I used
our blades.

The moon hung
above us in all its glory that night, like the eye of God keeping
watch on us. We waited in the woods for hours, the smell slowly
getting stronger and worse. We were all patient hunters, content to
wait in the shadows until our prey revealed itself, so the waiting
was no trial. A pale flash of light heralded the arrival of
Sithere. The phantom seemed to arrive at speed and then stop
suddenly in front of us, hanging in the air. He gave us a quick nod
and was gone again. The gigantic wolf burst into the clearing a
second later. Have you ever seen a werewolf, Doctor? I would guess
not. They are incredible beasts, a nightmare mix of all that is
worst of the wolf and ape and horror. This one looked much like a
huge baboon, but with clawed feet and long ears. It wore the
tattered remains of human clothing, including a thick belt holding
a number of pouches. The creature also had a trail of wet blood
spilling down from its mouth onto its chest, and I found out later
that it had already fed on an unlucky farmer who had been in the
wrong place at the wrong time. The beast was still hungry, as its
kind always are.

It was the
biggest wolf I had ever seen, but it still wasn’t as big as I was
expecting. I knew that anything capable of taking down Feather
would have to be something special, but this creature didn’t seem
so terrifying. It jumped at the meat, ripping the sheep to shreds
in seconds.

Then Stripes
yelled out a word, and the forest floor jumped upwards, and the
beast was hauled into the air by a net. A second net fell from
above, trapping the beast even further. It roared, ripping at the
thick rope and tearing it as if it were nothing more than wet
tissue. I sent my first arrow into the bundle of net and fur and
was rewarded by a roar. I sent a second, a third, a fourth in quick
succession, aiming for the animal’s head. The wolf was shredding
the nets, but more nets were dropping from the trees and grasping
the beast like hands of rope and knot, wrestling the creature and
slowing it. I learnt later that these were enchanted ropes, a
creature made of rope, a rope monster of sorts. No normal net could
hold a werewolf, but these were doing well.

Feather ran at
the net, stabbing at it with his spear. The creature stopped
struggling, laying limp in the net. Werewolves are notoriously hard
to kill, but can be subdued with enough violence.

‘That wasna so
hard,’ yelled out Stripes from somewhere in the forest.

‘Don’t-’ warned
Feather, but he was too late.

The creature
surged back to its feet, ripped through the nets and leapt into the
air. Its speed took us all by surprise, even Feather. Stripes hit
it with a fireball, but I swear it just made the creature angry. It
turned towards Stripes, but Feather stabbed it in the legs with his
spear, and so it turned towards him instead. Feather only had a
second, but he managed to drop into a crouch and take the animal’s
weight on his shield.

I sent an arrow
right into the monster’s eye, and it roared in pain, clawing chunks
of metal out of Feather’s shield. Feather twisted his body, sending
the werewolf rolling off him. I sent another arrow at its head,
sinking a shaft into its other eye. It was blind, but such things
hunt by sound and smell more than sight, so our advantage was not
as great as it might seem. We quickly spread out, surrounding the
creature to prevent it escaping.”

Rob scratched
the scars on his side thoughtfully, remembering the pain.

“It seemed like
a good plan, at the time. The creature was hurting, and we thought
it would be easy. The creature lashed out, sending dirt and leaves
flying everywhere. Feather shoulder- charged it heavily, sending it
flying again. To give the beast its due, it was tough. Tougher than
its brothers and sisters, tougher than should have been possible.
It soaked up the punishment, shrugged it off and continued. It
fell, it bled and it hurt, but it got up again. It was
unstoppable.”

Rob shivered
again, despite the warm afternoon sun. I told him that he didn’t
have to continue, but he ignored me.

“It was on its
feet before we knew it, sending Feather flying with a wild swing.
It stopped, reached down to the belt still hanging around its
waist. It pulled something up to its mouth and crunched down on it.
Whatever it had eaten gave it new strength and it roared. It tried
to run, hitting a tree and falling awkwardly. Stripes laughed
aloud, a terrible mistake to make as it revealed his position. The
creature stopped its flight, and started moving towards Stripes,
swinging wildly as it did so. Stripes roared another spell, but it
only angered the creature more. All of Stripe’s defences relied on
him speaking, but every word he spoke gave away his position. I
whistled a long, loud, painful whistle that hurt the ears. The wolf
turned to me, disorientated but furious. I had saved Stripes, but
had put myself in terrible danger to do so. I cursed my attempt at
team work and shot another arrow at the creature. It leapt over the
arrow and smashed into me so fast that I barely saw it move. All I
could see was its red, red eyes coming towards me. All I could feel
was cold terror gripping me as I was sent head over heels, my side
numb. I blacked out.”

For the first
time since I had met him, Rob looked worried. He had begun to sweat
as he talked, his eyes glazed and his voice far away. He didn’t
notice as I tightened his bandages and rubbed antiseptic solution
over one of his deeper cuts.

“I wasn’t
expecting to wake up, but I did. My body was a world of pain, and I
was trapped by it. Stripes was standing above me, and I could feel
him drawing on my torso with something. He gave me a piece of
leather to bite down on, and I gripped it gratefully. He twisted my
leg beneath me, and I remember screaming until I passed out.

I awoke under
the starlight, and for a second I thought I was in heaven. Then I
saw Stripes’ face above me. Angels don’t smile like
that
, so
I knew I was still on Earth. He had lit a fire next to me, and the
warmth was comforting. I felt surprisingly good, and I managed to
sit up without any trouble. The pain of the fight was just a bad
memory, and I even wondered if I had just dreamed it. Then I saw
the ruins of my trousers and saw the bloody flesh beneath them. I
twisted enough to see the wreckage of my side where chunks of flesh
had been torn away. The pain came flooding back, a tidal wave of
sensation that made my head swim.

‘Don’t look at
it!’ ordered Stripes, and as soon as I looked away I immediately
felt better.

I could see the
silvery outline of Sithere floating next to Stripes. The ghost
appeared to be meditating, or praying.

‘As long as you
don’t look at it, you can’t feel pain. It’s an elf trick that
Sithere taught me.’

‘I was told
that Elves don’t share their spells with humans,’ I managed,
remembering what I had been taught in training.

‘Aye, but
Sithere isn’t exactly an elf anymore. ’Sides, we are a team, and we
need to look after each other.’

We sat in an
uncomfortable silence as he finished his work. His healing wasn’t
nearly as skilled as yours, Doctor, but Sithere and he had enough
knowledge to keep me alive. He stitched me up as best he could,
using what bandages he had and could make. I had saved his life
that night, and he had saved mine.