The Lost: Book Two of The Whitechapel Chronicles

Chapter 6

The boy, standing stiff as a board with his hands clenched by his sides, withered under Harper's stare, his chest pumping in and out with fear. A slight waft of urine drifted over on the breeze and I knew he was doing all he could not to piss himself in the middle of the street.

"You can go now," Harper dismissed him and the boy's face twisted in anguish.

"B-but they said I had to get an answer."

Harper closed the file and stepped closer to the Varúlfur pup, whose skin began to bubble under the surface, the beast within him trying to surface like a natural defence mechanism.

"Tut, tut," Harper scolded, with a cruel smile. "We don't want to make a scene, do we? They want an answer? Here's my answer: tell them not to send a boy to do a man's job. You come looking for me again and I'll send you back in a fucking doggy bag."

The boy stepped back, slipped on the kerb and went sprawling on his backside into the wet gutter. With a cry he scrambled up and stumbled across the road, pushing his way through pedestrians on the other side and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd.

I scanned the street again, no longer feeling that cold stream of fear running through my veins, but nevertheless deeply unsettled at how easy we had been found and at whatever lay inside that file.

The shrill tone of Harper's mobile made me flinch.

"Yeah, we're fine," he said after hitting the call-accept button. "But it's not safe here; we'll meet you down by the canal."

With that, he ended the call and grabbed my hand once more. "Come on," he said gruffly, his eyes darting around us. "Stay alert. This whole thing fucking stinks to high heaven."

We took off in the direction of the canal and for the whole journey, I remained vigilant but not once did I detect the scent of any Varúlfur who might be following us. And the strange thing was that it made me more anxious to know we were not being tracked than if we had a whole pack of them on our trail. And I knew that Harper felt the same. His grip on my hand was almost painful and it didn't ease for a second as we made our way through the back streets until I could smell the sludgy, stinking waters of the canal.

Waiting for us in a narrow side street, close to the black stream that oozed through the locks, were two of Garrick's cars, both with the engines running but the headlights off. Garrick and Kale sat in the first car and through the windscreen; I could see Garrick's face glowering at us as we approached. In the car behind were Blaine and Sergio.

Climbing into the back of Garrick's car, he didn't turn but instead his eyes remained fixed on the street in front of us.

"Is it safe?" he asked, his voice was clipped and abrupt and I felt the anger reeling off him in great waves that threatened to consume us.

"We weren't followed," Harper replied.

"Well that makes me feel so much better considering you clearly didn't know you were being followed last night," Garrick sneered.

"They didn't follow us. They already knew the Lion was my place."

This time, Garrick did whip round to face us and his fury seemed to reach out and fill every space, crushing everything and sucking the air out of the car. "Oh really? That's just fucking wonderful, Harper. And how in the hell would they know where to find you?"

"I worked for them, remember?" Harper snapped back. "I double-crossed them. They've probably been searching for me ever since I took Megan."

"What did I tell you? I said that this obsession of yours would kill us. How many years have I worked to keep us underground? How much have we had to sacrifice to stay hidden? And you lead them straight to us because of your twisted games with the alpha."