Werewolf Parallel (18 page)

“Eve,” he whispered. “I can’t world-shift. It’s not working.”

Eve looked away. “Maybe none of us can. We don’t know how much is left of the Parallel. It might nearly all be gone, destroyed by the awful machine. Maybe that means it’s impossible to world-shift –”

“I don’t believe that – and you don’t either,” said Cameron, his jaw set. “You made it back here, and Morgan’s still there, and anyway…” He paused. “I can’t explain it, but I know it hasn’t all disappeared.”

“
We
should disappear,” Eve glanced round the shattered room, “before people start asking what we’re doing here, and did we have anything to do with blowing up their nice museum?”

“But Eve –”

“Cameron, you saved us,” she said quietly. “Do you realise that? You saved us all. Me and Morgan and the
pack –”

“I know, but –” Cameron reached for the Song of the Parallel again. A few notes sang tantalisingly in his mind, but faded before the tune kicked in. It was infuriating and sad – like knowing you’d once heard the best song
ever
, but not being able to recall more than a couple of fragments – and not being certain you’d ever hear it again.

And it wasn’t just any song – it was the song that let him move between the worlds…

“
Everyone
was in danger if the Humanian and Daemonic worlds merged,” Eve emphasised, “and you saved them all.” She looked at her brother and smiled. “That’s amazing. Isn’t it enough for you?”

“I guess so. I guess it’s got to be,” Cameron said. But he knew in his heart that it wasn’t enough at all.

The sun was setting over Blackford Hill, sliding behind the turret of the Observatory and lighting the grass in a golden glow.

Cameron could feel no werewolvish urges in his body, no strange desire to stretch and quiver and change. There was just the thump of his heart, the wind in his ears and the sensation of the skin on his face tightening against the chill of a night in early spring.

Eve said he should stop coming up here, mooning about, that he was only torturing himself with what he’d lost, but he couldn’t help it. It was his right to remember, wasn’t it? To think about the fun he’d had, running wild, on those mad nights. It had been a pretty good year, all in all, until Black and Grey had turned up.

And besides, tonight he had someone to meet.

Stalking up the hill in great rangy strides came a figure in a long army greatcoat and biker boots, his tangled hair blowing behind him. He gave a curt nod to Cameron, and the pair stood for a while, as the sun dipped lower, and the light began to fade.

“Still nothing?” said Morgan, after a time.

“Did you expect there would be?”

“Not really. If there was still a bit of wolf in you, I’d
scent it. We usually know our own.”

“Oh.” Cameron scuffed his trainers on the ground. “I can’t hear him anymore, so I guess I knew. Doesn’t make it any easier though…”

“What about the world-shift? Any better?”

“I dunno. I keep catching bits of the Parallel song, but not enough to focus on. I figure if I leave it alone, maybe it’ll jump out at me suddenly.”

“Leap out the cupboard and give you a scare?”

“Something like that, yeah.” Cameron lifted his hand, shielding his eyes. “Thing is though, I keep hearing other songs. All sorts of them. Brand new songs I’ve never heard before. Bits of lyrics that would go great with them too.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

Cameron nodded, a secret smile on his face. He’d loved music well before he’d ever got mixed up in the Parallel. It had always felt important to him. Even if the songs he heard in his head now couldn’t shift him into another world, they still made him feel different, more alive…

“Always did want to start a band.”

“What you gonna play? Lead guitar?”

“Yeah, I might do a bit of singing too.”

Morgan grinned lopsidedly. “Better hand out earplugs when you gig. Last time you howled, a steam engine exploded and the worlds nearly ended.”

“Maybe I’ll keep that for the encore.”

“What you gonna be called?”

“I dunno. Werewolf Parallel?”

“Strange name.”

“Just an idea I got from somewhere.” Cameron shook
his head. “Doesn’t have to be that. I figure when I start school again, I’ll ask around. Should be able to get some people together and practise a bit, work out my songs. You remember Amy? She said she could play keyboard, but I reckon she’s more drums –”

“Woah, woah. Hold up. You’re going back to school? Since when?”

“Since I got a glimpse of what it’d be like if I don’t.” Cameron sighed. “Anyway, it might not be that bad. This is a whole new city, isn’t it? Miles away from my old school and problems. Whole new me too… And Amy’s moving through to Edinburgh at the start of summer, so that’ll be a laugh. Eve’s got me reading loads to try and catch up.”

“Rather you than me, mate.”

Cameron stuck his hands in his pockets. “It’s not like I’ve got much choice, is it? Since the two partners in my business decided they’ve got other plans.”

“Low blow.” Morgan’s cheeks coloured. “You
know
I never wanted to lead that lot of mongrels. Been running away from that noose around my neck for as long as I can remember.” His fingers fidgeted at the collar of his coat.

“But you’re still doing it.”

“It’s not that easy, it’s just…” Morgan’s mouth twitched. “They’re like sheep, the pack. Need someone to follow. If it’s not me, it’s gonna be someone worse – someone big and dumb like Grant, or mean like Lola. Maybe I can shake ’em up a bit, before I do a vanishing act. I’m thinking the whole grow-up get-boring go-and-live-in-Daemonic needs ended.” He squinted at the sky and scratched his ribs. “Mind if we walk a bit?”

“Feeling the need?”

“You know how it is.” Morgan scrunched his nose.

“I remember.”

They climbed for a while, moving further up the hill and away from the road that led back to the human city.

“What about old grumpy?” Morgan said. “She gonna be in your band too?”

“Don’t think so. She claims she prefers opera and classical.” Cameron pulled a face. “Doesn’t seem feasible she’s my sister, does it? Must be some kind of mix up.”

“I’d ask for a refund,” said Morgan, deadpan. “She’s still keeping you company though, right?”

“Mainly, but she’s all over the place. Some days she says she never wants to see another daemon as long as she lives, the next she’s got some secret plan on the go. She won’t tell me, but I think it’s some mad idea to track down our mum.”

Morgan’s eyes widened. “Can she do that?”

“In the Augur’s ordeal Mrs Ferguson told Eve that mum was ‘banished’, and that’s not the same as dead, is it? It’s a slim chance, but she might be out there somewhere. I think Eve reckons she should go look.”

“What about you? Up for a new adventure?”

“I can’t, can I? Not unless the world-shift comes back.” Cameron shrugged, affecting a casual
indifference
he didn’t entirely possess. The truth was, this was a problem he didn’t feel ready to think about. “I’ve gone trying to dig up the past before, haven’t I, and it didn’t exactly work out.”

“You found Eve. And me.”

“See? Told you it was a big mistake.” Cameron ducked from Morgan’s playfully swung fist. “It’s Eve’s quest. I’ve got to find my own way.”

They stopped at the brow of the hill. A steep path lead down the other side, snaking away into rougher countryside. Morgan took off his coat, rolling it into a ball and stowing it in a hollow tree he and Cameron had often made use of. Below he was wearing the loose woven robes of the pack; clothes designed to fall away and drop to the ground as their wearer shifted from one shape to another.

“I like your dressing gown,” said Cameron with heavy sarcasm. “Very rock and roll.”

“Hey, it’s practical, isn’t it?”

“It’s a look.”

Morgan shucked off his boots and added them to the stash, his bare feet dancing a jig on cold earth. “Hey, I forgot. Delivery for you.” He took a medallion on a length of string from a pocket in his robe and placed it around Cameron’s neck. The boy dipped his chin to look, and saw the image of a two-faced man staring back at him.

“One of Janus’s white kitty-cats brought it to the hall. Grant tried to bite its ear off before he realised it was marble and chipped a tooth.” Morgan grinned. “I asked kitty if there was any payment due because, you know, Janus –”

“Tricky.”

“Exactly. The cat said no. It was done. Sacrifice had been made, and his master was pleased to extend protection over you and yours once more.”

Cameron rubbed the ward token with his thumb. “So at least I got something out of it, eh?”

Morgan flexed his arms then his legs, stretching like an athlete preparing for a marathon, and let out a long
breath. “He’s still out there, you know.” He shot Cameron a direct look. “Other you. I see him about the Parallel. It’s like he’s patrolling, keeping an eye out – not letting anything bad sneak in. Well, there’s still monsters and daemons, obviously, but nothing like Grey… I don’t think there’ll ever be anything like him again.”

“Lots of Parallel to patrol, is there?” Cameron heard his voice go tight as he fought to keep it controlled.

“Oh man,
you should see it
… It’s growing back bigger and madder than ever, filling up with all kinds of wild stuff. New, different things too. It’s like…” Morgan stopped abruptly. “Sorry. That was tactless, even for me.”

Cameron offered a smile. “It’s ok. Really. I’m glad it’s coming back. That’s what all this was about, wasn’t it?”

“That and saving the World.”

“Oh. That… I forgot. It’s not like they ever said thanks.”

They stood and watched as the night sky turned black and the clouds parted. There was something Cameron kept remembering, something the Augur had said. He’d told him he’d only win through by giving up that which he prized the most. He wondered what that was. Sometimes he thought it was the wolf he’d had to lose and sometimes the world-shifts –
but they could come back, right?
– or maybe… maybe it was something else altogether…

He pushed the thought away. He’d made one life on the Parallel – perhaps it was time to find another. If he really tried, with his new band and everything, maybe next year could be pretty good too…

“I’m gonna run now,” said Morgan. “You coming along for a bit?”

Cameron nodded. “Always.”

They set off down the hill, side by side, feet dancing from grass to shingle and back again. Air pumped through Cameron’s chest as their pace increased.

“This is what it means, eh?” he said between gasps, looking to his side. “Being alive?”

Morgan was no longer there. Some distance in front of him, Cameron made out the white streak of a wolf charging across the fields. Its head was down, its legs pounding the earth with grace and precision, racing with sheer joy. And then, just at the edge of his human vision, a second shape rippled out of the darkness: a wolf of such spectral blackness that it seemed to be part of the night itself.

Cameron’s feet slowed and crunched to a halt. He watched the two wolves until he could see them no longer, and then he turned to go home.

Read on for a sneak preview of
Daemon Parallel
,
the world-shredding prequel to Roy Gill's
Werewolf Parallel
.

It was over coffee and biscuits that Grandma Ives offered to return Cameron’s father from the dead.

“It won’t be easy, of course. A resurrection spell is old magic, and quite unwieldy. You would have to be both strong and brave, and I’d have to speak to Mrs Ferguson, which is never pleasant. But I can do it. If you want me to.”

Cameron stared at her. The old lady had made her proposal just as casually as she now pushed a plate of biscuits towards him.

“What do you mean, ‘a resurrection spell’?”

“Revitalise. Bring back. Make as if he’d never died. I’d have thought the meaning was quite obvious.” Her eyes narrowed. “Do you think I’m bluffing?”

You’ve got to be
. Cameron’s heart quickened in his chest. He looked away, choosing to examine Grandma Ives’ living room rather than reply. The winter sun was poking over Blackford Hill and light flooded in the balcony window, picking out the gold spines on the books, and showing up dust swirls on the bulgy grey screen of the old television. In the corner alcove, a jazz LP spun on the ancient record player and a warm fuzzy voice sang of
love gone bad
, and
a man who done me wrong…

He’d been living with the old lady for nearly a week now. She’d done nothing in that time to suggest she was mad, or likely to make up wild stories.

But she can’t really mean it. She can’t really be offering to bring Dad back to life
.

“Well, young man?”

Cameron took a biscuit, put it in his mouth, and crunched it.

“It’s good.” It wasn’t really. Nothing was, these days. The biscuit tasted of dry paper and the sort of marzipan he always picked off Christmas cakes.

This can’t be happening…

“You do
miss
him, I suppose?” Grandma Ives spoke the word as if a hair had got stuck on her tongue. “Not that I know why I should bring him back; he was trouble enough the first time. Never listened to a word of my good advice—”

“Of course I miss him!” Cameron shouted, unable to help himself. “Can’t you tell? Isn’t it obvious?” The thing was, deep down, he worried all the time that he should’ve begun to miss his dad a little bit sooner…

It was now just over two weeks ago, that first night Dad hadn’t come home. Cameron had come in from school, and slung his bag in the corner. He’d booted up his dad’s PC and logged on. The computer was nearly as old as he was, and it’d crash if you put a game anywhere near it, but it did alright for checking message boards and downloading music. When it got to 7.30, and he’d still not heard the rumble of his dad’s van in the driveway, Cameron went to the kitchen and got on with making his dinner. There was a stack of ready meals in the fridge.

“When I win the lottery I’ll cook,” his dad would say. “I’ll be like Number One Super Chef! Even Jamie Oliver won’t touch me.”

Cameron chose tuna and tomato bake. The label promised it was “delicious” and made to the “best ever recipe”, but somehow he doubted it. As he ate the stringy pasta he watched
The Simpsons
and then a bit of a talent show. Some of the contestants could sing, but they couldn’t dance or didn’t have the right look. Others had great hair or clothes, but screeched and wailed like angry cats.

He picked up his bowl, pausing on his way to the kitchen as he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror over the fire. His best friend Amy said he wasn’t bad looking, if he’d only have a bit of confidence. Cameron didn’t see it. He was tall for his age, sure, but he was thin too, and not exactly broad about the shoulders. He ran his hand through his hair, which fell down in a dark thatch over his eyes. Maybe he should get it cut to look like one of the guys off the telly? Amy would love that. She’d go on about it for a week. Then again, interesting hair got you noticed, and he didn’t want to do anything to make himself stand out more at school…

He channel hopped for a while, then reluctantly went up to his bedroom to get on with his homework. He put his stereo on loud; perhaps the noise would help drive some particularly dull maths problems into his skull. The driveway was still empty when he went to bed at 11.30, falling asleep to the sound of his headphones whispering in his ears.

The truth was, his dad was so often home late, Cameron had stopped finding it unusual. He ran Duffy’s Quick Clearances, and spent his days emptying houses after their owners died, or moved away, or went bankrupt. He would sort out the things worth selling, and take the lumpy old furniture nobody wanted to the dump. When Cameron was small, his dad sometimes took him along. He would run wild round strange, slowly-emptying spaces. Sad-eyed relatives of the departed would look at him fondly, and slip him fifty pence. Other times he’d get shouted at for being a nuisance and making too much noise.

Now his dad hardly ever wanted to take him, even if the jobs were at a weekend.

“You’ve got to study. Find out what you want and how to get there,” he’d say. “Don’t just fall into something like I did.”

Cameron would ask what he meant, but his dad would always push the question away.

Sometimes emptying a house meant working late into the night. People would leave it to the last minute to call the clearers. Malcolm Duffy and his lads would have to put in long hours to get the job done. If a client’s house was far away, Cameron’s dad would sometimes even bunk down in his van. When he came home the next day, he’d shake his head sadly and say, “You wouldn’t believe how much stuff people collect.”

Cameron would nod, thinking how his dad kept loads of odds and ends, all packed into the spare room; stuff he hadn’t been able to shift but insisted might be useful. The garage was crammed too, and the van usually had to
sit outside. On cold mornings, the engine would cough over and over before it shuddered back to life…

On the second day his dad did not come home, Cameron had gone round to Amy’s. Annoyingly, all Amy wanted to do was talk about some boy in the sixth year she’d got a crush on. Cameron hadn’t been sure what to say. He concentrated on checking out which new tunes Amy had added to her laptop, and waited for her to change the subject.

“Stay for dinner, Cam,” said Amy when her mum got in from her shift at the hospital. Her mum’s eyes were red around the corners, and Cameron didn’t think he should push his luck. He caught the bus home instead.

Fireworks popped and crackled above his head as he walked along Scott Street. People were getting ready for bonfire night early this year. As he turned the corner, he saw that the van was still not back in the drive. In the kitchen, his dirty plates lay untouched in the sink. If Dad had been in during the day, he’d have expected to find a clutter of mugs there too.

Cameron wasn’t sure what to do. The odd evening on his own was kind of fun; after a day in school, with its overheated cabbagey corridors, he enjoyed the space.

If Dad wasn’t going to make it home tonight either, Cameron told himself he wasn’t bothered. He would make the most of it. He’d raid the fridge, have a fry-up, and pig out in front of the telly. He’d put on that music channel that played nothing but rock and indie, the one that always made his dad glare and plug his ears…

He grinned. It was an excellent plan! But when he sat down on the sofa, with his skilfully cooked plate of
food – bacon brown and crispy, eggs running into the beans – it didn’t seem to taste right.

He tried his dad’s mobile. He hadn’t bothered before, when it had just been another late night. Two days without a message or text was definitely odd, though. When an answering
Brrrupp!
came from the old donkey jacket hanging up on a peg by the door, Cameron thumped his hand off his head in frustration. His dad was always leaving his phone in the wrong coat.

He looked up the tatty address book by the hall phone. There was no one permanently on the payroll of Duffy’s Quick Clearances, but there were a couple of guys his dad used regularly. Big Joe had the biggest beer belly you’ve ever seen. Scribbled in the phone book was “Try Black Bull” next to Joe’s name, so Cameron called the pub.

Big Joe hadn’t heard a thing. “Dinna concern yersel’, lad. It’ll all come oot fine in the wash.” He was keen to get back to his drinking.

Cameron called Eric next. Eric was trying to make it as a singer, when he wasn’t shifting furniture. Dad said Eric was sensitive, which Cameron took to mean his songs tended to go on a bit.

Eric was on the way home from band practice. “I haven’t been out on a job in weeks, Cam, and I’m noticing it. Listen, are you alright there, mate? Do you want me to head over?”

“Nah. It’s cool. I’m ok.”

Cameron went back to the living room to worry. Not long later, the doorbell rang.

“I’m fine, Eric, really—”

It wasn’t Eric on the doorstep. The two policemen invited themselves in, asked a load of questions, and made several cups of tea Cameron didn’t want. They spoke on their radios, looked at each other gravely, and offered to make more tea.

About an hour later, another police officer arrived. She was young and pretty, with dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. When she opened her mouth to speak, Cameron noticed an odd little gap between her bottom teeth. As she told him about the way they’d found the van by the caves on the beach at Weymss, the body on the sand, he found himself focussing on that gap, as if concentrating hard enough could keep him from crying.

The next week and a half passed in a painful sort of blur. Amy’s mum put him up at first. Amy hadn’t known what to say. She kept apologising, saying she was there for him, and asking if he wanted to talk. Cameron just wished she’d shut up and leave him alone.

Moving in with Grandma Ives hadn’t been Cameron’s idea. He barely knew the old lady. He had only vague memories of a woman with steel-grey hair, who’d turned up once on his seventh birthday. She’d given him a wooden music box, then sat in the corner, watching him intently. Cameron’s dad had been angry for some reason, and had taken the box away.

“He’s not going to be like you. You and your daft old ways! You keep your hands off!” he’d said, before showing her the door.

Cameron’s dad never made any secret of the fact he didn’t get on with his mother. There were cards that came
through the post at Christmas, but no more visits. So Cameron had been amazed when his dad’s will said Mrs Isobel Euphemia Ives-Duffy of 24 Observatory Road, Edinburgh was to be his guardian.

Cameron had tried to explain to Carole the social worker that he didn’t know the old woman at all. She hadn’t listened.

“Crises like these, they have a wonderful way of bringing family together. You’re only thirteen. There’s no way you can live on your own.”

Cameron’s house turned out to be owned by his mum and dad together, but no one knew where Elaine Duffy was these days, Cameron included. There were only a few precious things he remembered about her, she left so long ago.

“There are all sorts of complicated legal things to be sorted before the will can be settled,” Carole said. “You’re best off with your gran. And your school has agreed to send work home for now.”

She helped the boy pack some of his possessions, and drove him in her battered Volvo to Grandma Ives’ house in the south of Edinburgh. Even though it was only fifty minutes away from his home in Cauldlockheart, Cameron had never been to her house before. As they sat in Grandma Ives’ living room, Carole promised she’d drop in soon. Grandma Ives insisted that would not be necessary. Her tone suggested she was used to getting what she wanted.

“I can see you’ll both get on famously!” Carole said, as she packed up her notes in her leatherette briefcase.

Cameron had exchanged a wary glance with his newly acquired Gran. “Grandma Ives” – that’s what he was supposed to call her. She looked smart in an old-fashioned sort of way, and thin, and more than a bit stern.

Not like a proper granny at all…

A proper granny would never offer to bring her only son – his dad – back from the dead.

“I can tell by your face you don’t care for the biscotti. That’s alright. You don’t have to eat them.”

He looked down at the plate she’d pushed towards him. Dad wouldn’t have put out biscuits like that, with their posh paper wrappers and icky-acid almond taste. You’d get a torn-open packet of Hobnobs, or maybe some Jaffa Cakes. The coffee wouldn’t come in a glass pot with a plunger either…

Cameron’s hands went to his stomach. Everything normal, everything he had grown up with, had been taken away. The pain of losing Dad felt like someone had cut a vital muscle from his guts, and it wasn’t getting any better. He still went about, day by day, walking and talking and eating as if he were normal and healthy, but all the time he was trying to hold himself together, to stop the gap from spreading. He blamed himself for all sorts of things: for not noticing something was up with his dad; for not calling the police sooner; for not starting to worry when something still could’ve been done. And now the old woman was offering to put that missing part back, to give him the chance to find out what really happened, to magically make it all better…

“Did you mean what you said, about bringing him back?” Cameron hardly dared to believe it.

“I always mean what I say.” Behind Grandma Ives’ wire-framed glasses, her eyes were calm and steady, without a hint of doubt or playfulness.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “Please. Bring him back.”

“What was that?” The old lady leaned closer.

“Bring him back. Just tell me what I have to do.”

Grandma Ives smiled. “Good boy,” she said.