Moonscorn

Chapter Eight

"Would you like me to come with you?"

"No, it's fine. I can manage."

Cold escorted her to the door of the kitchen, where she crossed to the phone, picked it up, and looked at it blankly. If she phoned, if she said the words she'd been told, the truth would flood in on a great wave of salt water.

With Cold in the doorway watching over her, Raven poured three cups of tea. Then he sat on the sofa and thought. That was what he was good at. Thinking.

She had known her grandson went out at night, but seemingly didn't think anything supernatural (or extranatural, as The Conservatory were fond of correcting him into saying) about it. Just a struggling child finding a way to deal with things. And as he'd never apparently shown any signs of drugs or drink (the autopsy report backing that up, 'He's not a delinquent, you know'), Raven assumed she was telling the truth. If she suspected anything about Taylor Purse, she was repressing it, not wanting to face the facts, or an incredibly good liar.

Raven reached into his pocket and scanned the area. Any werewolf activity would leave a trace, be it a subtle scent on an item of clothing ripped during transformation, or a hair on a splinter of wood. Had he changed inside the house, or at least nearby, in the recent past, he'd pick it up.

The scan showed vague signs of lycan traces, but nothing much. That was to be expected. Taylor hadn't walked several miles to Whaterly before changing into a wolf, so he had obviously transformed and run there. Raven tried to imagine him, a boy on the cusp of finishing high school, fur ripping through his skin, bones crunching and claws growing before racing in a big brown blur of fur, front paws then back paws then front and then back, all the way to Whaterly.

To kill and eat.

To meet another werewolf, older, more savage.

To be shot by Persephone on an empty country road.

It took Raven a moment to recalibrate himself. He could hear Delia Purse talking on the phone in the other room, a low voice broken up with the odd sniffle. Cold gave him a glance back, then returned to watch Delia, back straight, hands clasped respectfully at his front.

That was a person we killed, Raven thought. Not just a person. A boy. A boy with a whole life ahead of him. And we shot him like, to use a word, a dog. He was a boy.

If the time came, if the situation arose, he might one day have to shoot Hysteria like they shot Taylor Purse.

It was what they had told him on day one of working with Hysteria. It was what they told the last handler. Don't get too close to her, they said. She could turn at any moment. She's a wild child in human form, and as a wolf, well, werewolves are unpredictable at the best of times. If you have to, shoot her. The geeks in the lab coats will complain to high hell, but that means jack. You shoot her if you need to, without remorse. Clean. Do it. Move on.

But there wasn't a chance of not getting close. There was a connection with her. Probably just a friendship, only a little more than colleagues. There had to be; he was her handler. You had to know your wolf inside and out. He was far from that, and he suspected that even Hysteria didn't know herself, but they weren't complete strangers. Not close, but not blanks.

Could he put her down, if the time came?

The gadget buzzed in his hand. He looked down at the screen and frowned. A blurry dot nearby. Werewolf. But no, there couldn't be. The trace was too faint, a blur, a handprint on a window. It was as if the sensors weren't sure if they were actually picking up a lycanthrope signal or not.

Raven got up and walked to the window. Looked out into a moonlit street. Across the road, a hedge stood behind the war memorial leading down a sloping field, back in the direction of Whaterly. He looked up and down the road and saw nothing, not even the red lights of a car in the distance.

Then movement. A black shape. Something. Big. Hunched.

Raven checked his monitor. Moving, nearby, opposite.

The war memorial had a visitor. No more than a silhouette, shaky through the glass, but definitely something there. Muscled, two feet used to being on the ground now clutching the side of the stone needle.

Raven backed up slowly towards Cold, then tapped him three times on the arm. Raven pointed out the window. Cold looked and the lycan shape slipped out of the streetlamp's warmth, pushed through the hedge, and vanished.

"Go," Cold said. "I'll be behind you."

Raven hurried to the door and threw it open. Ran across the road. He stepped onto the small railing that wrapped around the memorial and launched himself over the hedge.

The shadow galloped down the field. Too fast, but he had to try.

Raven drew his gun and ran.