The red trilogy, p.31
The RED Trilogy, page 31
“You keep calling it a job,” said Peel. “Mine was to track and help catch this thing, but what then? What are you going to do?”
“Waterhouse is going to find out what the hell’s going on with those freaks,” Tommy replied. “Then we can figure out if we’ll be able to stop it.”
And that was that for a while. They waited once more, not for the monsters to arrive, but for one of their kind to wake up. When it did finally stir, it started to growl. When it opened its red eyes and saw the humans surrounding it, the beast tried to rise—intending to kill every single one of them. The chains, the manacles, all prevented that from happening, as well as significantly weakening the creature. Nevertheless, they all took a few steps back.
Everyone except Waterhouse, that was. He stood there smirking, then said: “Showtime!”
He warned them before he began that his sessions wouldn’t be pleasant, but he was selling himself short. They were horrific, starting off slow: shooting what looked like tiny silver darts into the hound, sapping its strength even more; pulling out each claw in turn with pliers as it howled in pain. Then moving on to the slicing and dicing, utilising all those tools of his particular trade, small and large: the drill came into play again with other attachments, as did various spikes, knives and scalpels. At one point Waterhouse was using what looked like a silver machete, hacking into the beast from behind, before squirting some kind of brown liquid on the wounds; possibly vinegar. The savage grin remained fixed to his face throughout all this, as he asked question after question: demanding to know what the wolves were up to; then coaxing it to talk by promising he would stop the torture if it did. He’d been right when he said to Peel that he didn’t know what an interrogation was. But this was so much more than that. Brutality beyond anything they’d ever seen. At least the mutts killed you quickly. And this one would glace up periodically, those red eyes looking so sad—if that were at all possible. Pleading with the rest of them to stop this madman.
Peel was the first to leave the room, but Pat soon followed. Even Tommy had to admit that, as much as he hated them, he was starting to feel sorry for this animal. When he couldn’t take any more, either, he went outside as well.
Only Pat was around, sitting crossed-legged on the bonnet of the estate car and sipping a drink. He walked over to her. “Where’s Peel gone?”
“Went to take a leak,” she informed Tommy, putting down her cup.
“I see.”
She nodded past him, back towards the warehouse. “How do you know it’ll talk? Can they even talk in that form?”
“They can, if they want to. And it will. I’ve never known Waterhouse to fail yet.”
“With humans,” Pat reminded him. “Not with . . .” She shook her head.
There was silence briefly, then Tommy broke it with: “Look, what you did back there. It’s—”
“It was nothing,” she told him.
“Wasn’t nothing. It was definitely something.”
“It needed doing. You . . . we needed information.” She looked down again, possibly thinking about what was still going on inside that building? No, it was something else.
So that was it, she’d done it for him. Almost got herself killed for him. Tommy didn’t know how he felt about that. He liked Pat, liked her a lot. Didn’t really understand her, but wasn’t that part of her charm? They’d been mates for a while now, but something had changed lately. There was something else in her eyes when she looked at him, as if she wanted to tell him something. Or ask him something. And when she’d been in grave danger back there . . .
“Peel . . . he says that you know,” she came out with suddenly, breaking into his thoughts.
“Know what?” asked Tommy.
“About me. That I’m not . . . I mean, that I’m . . .”
Tommy couldn’t help it, he let out a small laugh and she looked up at him then, a faint scowl on her face. He apologised. “I didn’t . . . You’re talking about the girl thing, right?”
“Don’t call me that,” she said.
“What, a girl? That’s what you are though, isn’t it?” He was confused now. “I know you prefer to . . . You identify as . . . and that’s your choice, but—”
“I’m . . . I’m not a little girl, Tommy.”
Now he understood. “Right, got it! I’m with you. Not a gender thing. God, I just meant you were . . . You’re like what now, sixteen, seventeen?”
“Almost eighteen,” she said defiantly, then her shoulders slumped.
“Right, of course.”
“I’m not that much younger than you.”
“Yeah. I know.” And in this world, you grew up fast. You had to. “That wasn’t what . . . Look, if you’re asking me how long I’ve known you were . . . Well, it was just obvious to me.”
“It was?” She seemed surprised by this.
“Yeah.” Tommy thought about adding, ‘you’re not that good an actor’ but he knew a lot of blokes—people who barely even registered Pat was around—took her for the opposite sex. Didn’t care either way. Instead, to make her feel a bit better, he said: “You’re . . . well, you’re pretty, Pat.”
It took a moment or so, as if she was deciding whether this was a good thing or not, but then she beamed—and there was no mistaking now what she was. That smile lit up their dark and depressing surroundings. “All those chats, why didn’t you ever mention anything?”
“It’s not something you just casually bring up. How’d you start that conversation: so, you want to be a guy?”
“I didn’t . . . I never wanted to be . . . That wasn’t . . .” Pat gave up trying to explain and shook her head. It was obviously complicated.
“I just figured you didn’t want to talk about it.” Tommy leaned on the car, facing her. “Why didn’t you say anything?” It was a fair enough question.
“I-I was scared to. I didn’t want to lose you as a friend.”
It was his turn to smile now. “That wouldn’t have happened, Pat. You’re one of the few people I can actually talk to, confide in.”
“So . . .” She looked down at her fingers, picking at the skin from the edge of one. “Is that why you never . . . y’know?”
What was she asking him, why he never made a move? Apart from her wanting to be the opposite sex, or so he thought (which was absolutely fine with him by the way, he had no time whatsoever for small-minded bigots; it was just that he happened to be straight), there had been the age thing. In spite of what she thought, she had only been a kid when they first met. Not that he’d been grown up or anything, about the age she was now and so desperate to prove himself that was all he could think about. But on top of everything, there was the threat of being killed hanging over their heads every single day. Friendship was one thing, this would have been something else entirely . . . Lack of focus like that might have got them both killed all the quicker. He rubbed the back of his neck, not sure how to respond to her question. Or how to answer it in a way that wouldn’t get him into more trouble.
Before he could say anything, Pat was talking again. “Tommy, listen. If I don’t say this now I never will. I—”
“Tommy!” Waterhouse’s voice cut through the conversation. He was at the door of the warehouse, beckoning him over.
Pat’s shoulders slumped again and she sighed. Tommy couldn’t decide whether he was relieved at the interruption or sad. “I’d better . . .” he said.
“You go,” she told him. “It’s all right.”
“I’m sorry,” he said and meant it. Then he rushed back over to the torturer, to see what was so urgent.
“I got a response. She says she’ll only talk to the person in charge,” Waterhouse informed him. “That would be you. And she wants to speak alone.”
“She?”
“It’s a bitch,” Waterhouse confirmed.
“Right, okay,” said Tommy. “Thanks.”
He stepped past Waterhouse, glancing back at Pat as he did so. She was watching him, sadness in her own eyes. Then she looked away, breaking the connection—allowing him to focus as he so badly needed to now. Tommy let out a sigh himself, and walked through the door.
The creature was even more raddled and broken than the last time he’d seen it, breath coming in short gasps, eyes more doleful than Pat’s had been outside. It was also slumped, again a little like Pat was, but this time because it couldn’t hold itself fully upright. Its fur was wet in places, matted with dried blood but also from that liquid Waterhouse kept spraying on it. Tommy’s stride slowed down, that same fear he felt when he visited his mother returning.
This is what you wanted, he reminded himself. You needed to know what was going on, and this was the only way.
“Y-You wanted to speak to me,” he said when he was finally near enough, voice cracking. Hardly the voice of a leader, a person in control.
The creature tipped its head, a gesture Tommy took as acknowledgment.
“So, I’m here,” he told it, tone strengthening. He was in charge, not this thing.
Its first words to him, when it opened its mouth, were whispered, raspy. Every syllable was an effort, Tommy could see that. “Funny . . .” it—she—managed, “I . . . I thought you’d . . . you’d be taller.”
“Excuse me?”
The wolf let out what could only be described as part-growl, part-laugh. “The . . . the great . . . great Tommy Daniels.”
She knew who he was. How did she know who he was? Tommy cast his mind back over their time here; had anyone mentioned his name? Waterhouse had called to him outside, but well out of earshot—although this thing’s hearing would be incredible. Had maybe even heard the conversation outside between him and Pat? So, she might have got he was Tommy, but not who he was. Had word spread throughout their ranks as well as his own? He decided to let that pass for the time being, there were more important things at stake.
“Tell me what’s going on out there? What—”
“Secrets.” She hissed this as a snake would. “Not so . . . secret secrets. Secrets and lies, Tommy.”
Bloody Hell, it was like having a conversation with his mother.
The wolf cocked its head. “I-I knew her, you know.”
“Knew who?”
“You . . . your mother.” The creature began to cough, long and hard—spitting out a mixture of sputum and redness at the end, as a full stop. Then she fixed Tommy with a glare. “I . . . I wasn’t always like this.”
“You . . . What the fuck are you talking about?” That had thrown him again, the confidence vanishing in an instant.
“S-Steph.” Once again, the sound was almost reptilian rather than mammal. The effect was surreal and quite disturbing. “I . . . At least I think that was my name . . . or her name . . . It gets muddled sometimes when you share . . . feelings . . . thoughts, memories.”
They all did that, could pass those on. Didn’t mean this was the Steph his mother had once talked about so fondly, her best friend.
“She . . . she did this to me. To her.”
Tommy frowned.
“You . . . you really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what? You’re not making any sense.”
“She . . . she never told you . . . told you the story? Not even as a bed . . . bedtime tale. A fable . . .” The wolf began coughing once more, wheezing as she struggled on with the conversation. “Bad Rachael. Rachael Elizabeth . . . Daniels.”
His mother’s middle name, how could . . . But then he remembered the channelling thing. Collective memories. Steph—the real Steph—would have known. Waterhouse might have cut off this beast’s ability to call for help, to communicate with her own kind, but answers like that were already in its blood. Shared pasts, shared histories. Still, he protested. “You don’t know a thing about me or my family.”
That laugh again. “You . . . you tell yourself that. While you’re at it, you ask her. Ask her about . . . the night they . . . they met. Denim . . . denim on denim . . . I . . . Steph was there.”
His dad. Was she talking about his dad? That was the same phrase his mother had used the last time he’d seen her. “My father?”
“One . . . one of them.”
She was trying to get to him, and it was working. Trying to mess with him, get inside his head. Literally, it would seem—because her face was screwed up in concentration now, summoning the strength to do something. And he saw flashes in his mind; blurry images of a place with lots of people inside. It was noisy, they were drinking. Tommy remembered bars from when he was younger, but they’d been family pubs, the only places his mother could take him. This was different, they were all adults here. Someone was staring across the room, staring with oh-so blue eyes. Eyes like his. Wearing . . . a denim jacket, jeans. Nursing a pint, watching. There was noise now, more noise. Someone was fighting, a brawl breaking out. Tommy turned to see someone who looked like his mother, but younger. Another woman with her and—
The wolf slumped again, breathing even more heavily than before. Was she . . . had she been projecting that into his mind? Was that a trick they didn’t know about, to pass information on to humans?
Another laugh. “You . . . you really don’t have the fir . . . first inkling, do you?” she gasped.
“So, tell me,” he urged her—no, practically begged her.
“He’s buried so . . . so deep. But he’ll . . . he’ll be free again soon. T-Those mirrors won’t help. He’s coming back, Tommy . . . Then you’ll know all about family.”
He moved even closer, almost reached out and shook the animal. “Tell me!”
“Operation Wolfshead,” the creature said, loudly and clearly.
Tommy took a step back again. “Where did you hear that name?”
“Not . . . not so . . . secret secrets,” she repeated.
Had she plucked it out of his head when she’d been planting those images inside? Didn’t matter, he told himself, nobody knew the whole plan. Only a handful of people even knew what it was called. Tommy certainly didn’t have the vaguest notion about the rest, the details. The where, when and how.
“We . . . we know,” the wolf assured him, again as if reading his thoughts. “And . . . and we’re ready . . . We’ll be waiting . . .”
“No,” said Tommy. “No!”
The wolf laughed one final laugh, then coughed again—deep, throaty coughs, worse than ever. With one final effort, it barked then slumped over. Unconscious or dead, Tommy had no idea. He ran back to the door, calling out for Waterhouse, who was there in seconds. Pat followed not long after that and they all stood looking at the thing.
“It’s not breathing,” she said, stating the obvious.
She. She was dead, thought Tommy. They’d killed her. The thing who’d identified as Steph, who may or may not have been his mother’s old friend from before he was born.
Waterhouse walked towards the mass of fur. “At least tell me you got what we needed to know, after all that.”
“I . . . I got some of it,” said Tommy.
The torturer looked back at him and nodded. “That’s something, I suppose.”
What happened next, happened fast. While his attention was on Tommy, behind Waterhouse the monster was stirring. Changing. Getting smaller. Though it shouldn’t have been able to, weakened as it was by the silver and the amount of wounds inflicted—yet as Tommy realised afterwards, it could always have made things look much worse than they really were—the wolf was morphing. Shapeshifting. In the blink of an eye, she wasn’t even a wolf at all, she was human. She was a naked human woman; the woman Tommy had seen in that pub. In his mother’s old photos. A woman called Steph. It still didn’t mean it was her, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was the manacles at her wrists fell off, tightened as they had been on the much larger creature. Seconds later, she’d undone the clasp on her neck, freeing herself.
Seconds after that, she’d turned back into the wolf—shaking herself, shaking off all the silver which was still attached to her, like a dog shaking off water after a dip in the ocean. Still probably not up to full strength (“It’s a strong one, this . . .”), the wolf was resilient enough to reach out and grab Waterhouse before he could even react.
The torments of the last few hours were repaid in full then, as the beast pulled both his arms out of their sockets without breaking a sweat. Geysers of blood fountained from the holes at his shoulders, a look of complete shock and surprise on the torturer’s face.
Then the wolf ripped his body in two, as if it was a sheet of paper. As she bounded forwards, the wolf brought up a hand to show the claws were growing out of each finger; re-growing in fact, being replaced. Ready to do untold damage.
Tommy’s pistol was up and out, but his shot went wide as the creature barged into him, sending him flying. When he landed, he looked up in time to see the wolf stalking Pat. The other hand . . . paw now . . . had its claws back again as well, and it was reaching out, about to cleave her to bits—when it stopped dead in its tracks.
Completely dead, actually, an axe having landed at the base of its neck. Another chop, and the female wolf’s head was cleaved off instead. It rolled across the floor to land not far away from where Tommy lay. As the rest of its body toppled, he saw Peel standing there, pulling the axe—which was still dripping with gore—back again, completing the motion.
Pat ran to the man and he let one of the hands he’d been holding the axe with fall, drawing her to his side, taking her under his ‘wing’. They were both looking over at Tommy, but he was looking at the object in front of him. Dead, she was dead. They’d . . . Peel had killed her, just not in time.
And all he could think to himself was: wolfshead.
Operation Wolfshead.
Chapter Seven
The operation was underway.
His operation: Wolfshead. They were finally—yet suddenly—putting it into effect, and his name would go down in history because of it. Grice, they’d say, hero of the hour. The end of this oppression, the end of the war, more or less . . . all down to him. He’d succeed where all the governments and all the military endeavours had failed in the past. A concerted effort, a concentrated attack on the very heart of their territory. Co-ordinated, but only he knew the big picture. It was why they couldn’t possibly see it coming, because he’d kept that information to himself.
