Wolf in Shadow-eARC Read online

  WOLF IN

  SHADOW-eARC

  By John Lambshead

  Advanced Reader Copy

  Unproofed

  WOLF IN SHADOW

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed

  in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people

  or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 by John Lambshead

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book

  or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 978-1-4516-3910-0

  Cover art by Dave Seeley

  First printing, July 2013

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

  TK

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank David Drake for his invaluable help

  and many kindnesses and Fred Kiesche for reading through the manuscript fortypos. Finally, I must thank Toni Weisskopf for whipping the novel into shape.

  Note

  Everything you read in this novel about London from this point on is true, except for the bits I have exaggerated, distorted, or completely fabricated.

  —John Lambshead

  He’s mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf.”

  —Shakespeare, King Lear

  CHAPTER 1

  SAYING GOODBYE

  Saying goodbye is the defining moment between ending an old life and starting anew. Without that terminal farewell, shadows and regrets of the past hang around like a bunch of distant relatives who have learned of your lottery win. They tended to haunt Rhian no matter how far she ran so she wanted to say goodbye.

  She had never moved into the flat properly, just kept a spare washbag and a change of clothes there. So it would always be James’ flat in her head, not their flat.

  Somehow the door looked shabbier than she remembered, the paint peeling from around the wooden panels. She turned her key in the Yale lock noting the scratches where tired and drunken tenants had marked the paint. One gouge looked new suggesting that James himself must have caused it—James or her.

  She pushed the door and walked in, dropping her heavy shoulder bag to the floor. The tiny flat was exactly the same even though everything was different. James had gone and the life of the flat had departed with him. It had always been a warm place, a welcoming place, but now it smelled cold and stale. It had not taken long for the damp to get a grip. Like her life, she thought. The decay mirrored her life.

  The front door opened straight into a living room with a kitchenette in the corner. She slipped her rucksack off and sat on the arm of the old, stained sofa to catch her breath. An unwashed plate encrusted with the dried remains of a meal was discarded carelessly on the floor by a knocked-over coffee mug. She picked them up, putting them on the side for washing. The mug had a picture of a superhero on the side. James had been into comics. She had often scolded him about his untidiness. How could she have wasted her time with him on such trivia?

  James’ computer was still where he always kept it, on a cheap self-assembly office table against the wall. She used to sit just where she sat now, watching while he worked. He was completely unaware of her presence when he concentrated with that terrible male focus. Then she felt that she saw into the real James and she liked what she observed.

  Rhian unzipped her coat, allowing the silver Celtic brooch hung around her neck to swing free on its chain. The stylised wolf head on the brooch glinted in the light from the window, catching her eye. Worn letters picked out the word Morgana.

  James had looked up the British goddess on the internet and read off her list of attributes. To the English she was Morgan le Fay, Goddess of fate and sister and sworn enemy to King Arthur. In the Welsh tradition she was the goddess of death, the Moon, lakes and rivers. James had been puzzled why the brooch was shaped like a wolf’s head when Morgana’s symbol was the raven, until he discovered she was the queen of shape shifters.

  Rhian could still hear James’ voice in the empty flat, could picture him standing over her.

  “Shapeshifters, you know, weres.” He growled and clawed his hand at her. “Werewolves, Rhian. Haven’t you ever met a wolf?”

  He had jumped on her theatrically and she had fallen over with a shriek, his heavy body pinning her down.

  “It’s getting late,” he said. “I had better walk you back to your bed-sit.”

  “I’ve some things in my bag. I could stay here tonight,” she replied.

  “It’s a small flat. I only have one bed.”

  “I know,” Rhian said, raising her lips to his.

  She smiled, recalling what a bad girl she had been, and regretting not a moment. Then the numbness came down like the curtain falling for the last time on a cancelled play and Rhian went back into robotic mode. She couldn’t bear to feel, to let herself hurt.

  She slipped into the bathroom, retrieving her washbag from under the sink. The area was surprisingly spacious with room for a full-sized bath. It had probably served a much bigger living area before the building had been subdivided into the largest possible number of flats.

  The bedroom, in contrast, was minute. Nevertheless, the landlord had squeezed in a single bed, side table, and wardrobe. Rhian opened the wardrobe, removing the few things that she kept there. All James’ clothes were still hung on hangers or crammed into carrier bags, waiting to be washed. She pulled a shirt out of a bag and lifted it to her face, smelling his scent.

  She almost broke down then but she held it together. She had promised herself she would not cry. She froze her feelings until she felt hollow. Inside her head was a vacuum, a cold emptiness like the center of a bronze-cast statue.

  Rhian put the garment down and was businesslike again. She gathered up everything—her clothes, her washbag—what else was there? She wanted to leave no sign of her presence in the flat. She opened the drawer under the side table. Inside was a bad photograph of a girl sitting on James’ knee. She remembered the picture being taken in the passport booth at Victoria Station. They were waiting for a train to the coast for a day trip. It rained the whole day and she had a wonderful time. She put the photo in her pocket.

  Rhian looked into the bedroom mirror. The face that looked back at her was near identical to the girl in the photo. Both girls had the same short-cut dark hair, the same petite bone structure but the eyes were different. The girl in the mirror had eyes that were a thousand years older.

  She put the photo carefully in her coat pocket and turned away. She was about to leave when a thought struck her, so she reopened the drawer and pulled it completely out. Feeling under the lid, she found an envelope taped out of sight. She slipped open the flap to reveal a slim stack of ten- and twenty-pound notes. She placed the envelope in her coat pocket next to the photo.

  She put her rucksack back on, loaded her bag upon her shoulder and placed her key firmly down on the computer table. She would not be coming back, ever. The door closed with a click of the Yale lock when she let herself out. She went down the stairs and out of the front door onto the street. Rhian walked along the pavement for a few meters then stopped.

  “I wonder,” she said, “where I should go?”

  CHAPTER 2

  THE TUBE

  Outside Ealing Broadway tube station, a large schematic map showed the various bus routes into the outer West London su
burbs, Hounslow, Uxbridge, and Heathrow. Coaches ventured further west down the M4 to Slough, Reading, or even Wales.

  Return to Wales? That thought concentrated her mind. Return to her mother and the endless stream of transient “uncles” that passed through her house; uncles with greedy eyes and wandering hands. She came to a decision not to go west. She would go east, as far to the east as she could. Rhian was running away all over again.

  She punched pound coins into the vending machine on the wall. It refused to accept her two-pound coin so she resorted to the old trick of licking one side, disgusting but effective. The machine disgorged a single one-way ticket to Upminster on the end of the District Line. Rhian had absolutely no idea what it was like, but it fulfilled her two vital criteria: it was not in Ealing and it was a long way from Wales.

  The automatic barrier fought to strip her of her bags but she triumphed and after a brief struggle walked down onto the platform. A bored London Transport official studied the bare-breasted page three girl in The Sun. The tube station was above ground so she could look up at the grey sky. It was one of those dreary London days where the clouds refused to rain but still hung around, like anxious parents at a teenage party.

  It almost never rained in London. At this rate they would be declaring another drought and banning hosepipes and car washes. She glanced every few minutes at the electronic board, watching the marker count out the minutes to the arrival of the Upminster train.

  A deep male voice boomed over the speakers in a Jamaican accent. “Stand clear of the platform.”

  She obediently moved two paces backward, and an empty train with its lights off rattled through.

  “The Upminster train has been taken out of service. The next one is due . . . ,” there was a pause. “Sometime soon.”

  Rhian sighed and searched for a seat unmarked by chewing gum or unmentionable stains in shades of brown.

  Oddly enough, the train did arrive shortly afterwards. Rhian climbed into an empty carriage and slipped between the arms of a seat. The interior stank of the sharp tang of ozone from the powered rail pickups mixed with the musty smell of ancient upholstery. The doors slid shut with a solid thump, and they were off. Rhian leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes. She dozed fitfully, a watchful part of her mind noting the automatic opening and closing of the sliding doors as the tube train ground its way through the western suburbs.

  A sudden surge in noise woke her up. The train dived into the network of tunnels under central London and sound reverberated off the walls. She was no longer alone in the carriage. On the seat opposite, a thin youth in dirty jeans looked away a little too quickly when her eyes met his. She put a protective arm across her luggage. Bag snatching had the status of a cottage industry in London. The youth leaned forward, lank, greasy hair hiding his face. Rhian picked up one of the free newspapers that littered the floor and leafed through the pages, more to occupy her hands than because she was interested in reading the articles.

  The carriage filled as the train ran towards the West End, so she moved her bags onto her lap. Eventually, all the seats were taken and people were obliged to strap-hang. The youth slouched off at South Kensington. Maybe he had promised himself an improving day at the museums thought Rhian sourly. Once the train left the City of Westminster for the City of London, the original Roman London, the carriage began to empty. The last two occupants, a couple of elderly tourists instantly recognizable as American by the man’s baseball hat, got off at Tower Hill and Rhian was left on her own.

  The tube wound under Charles Dickens’ old East London.

  The carriage swayed backwards and forwards over a hidden set of points, throwing her against the arm rests and causing her rucksack to fall onto the floor. She brushed muck off the bottom and put it beside her on the empty seat. At this time of day the trains outside the tourist areas were little used. The massed lemminglike hordes of commuters had thundered into their offices earlier and would not reappear until the evening. More than three million people used London’s tube trains every day.

  “Tickets, please?” A young man stood in front of her with his hand out.

  He had come out of nowhere. She was sure that he had not been there earlier. They never usually checked the tickets on the tube once you were through the automatic barriers. Wordlessly, she fished around in her pocket for the ticket and handed it over to the man. He examined it casually. He was dressed in a T-shirt and cargo trousers, showing a superbly fit, muscled body. He had a bag slung on a strap over his shoulder.

  He looked unlike any London Transport official or policeman that Rhian had ever seen. She wondered if the government was putting SAS troopers back on the trains again. There might be some sort of terrorist panic on and the authorities were trying to reassure the public. Rhian did not own a TV and hardly ever read a paper, so she was rarely aware of national events.

  The man’s eyes flicked up and down her body in that characteristic male once-over that every woman between the age of fifteen and fifty got used to receiving. He was clearly bored. No doubt he would prefer to be doing something more masculine and exciting like abseiling down embassy walls or running around Dartmoor waving a machine gun, but here he was, checking girlys’ train tickets as a public relations stunt for the government. He handed her ticket back and passed on down the carriage, letting himself into the next one by the interconnecting door. That was highly unusual in itself as those doors were not usually used when the train was in service.

  The train screeched to a halt without warning, the carriages lurching and bumping as the multiple brakes bit differentially. Rhian sighed. London had the oldest and largest underground railway system in the world, two hundred and seventy-five stations connected by two hundred and fifty miles of track. Rhian had chosen the history of the London Underground as her special topic at school so she had a fund of pointless information about the system stored up in her head. The idea of a giant underground railway had seemed romantic to a girl growing up in a Welsh valley.

  The problem with being the oldest and biggest was that the system was out of date and impossibly expensive to modernize. When she came to London she discovered that the tubes might be impressive but were hardly glamorous. They were an example of archaic heavy engineering. Some of the power wiring was fifty years old and had a habit of cutting out at inconvenient moments.

  Half the system ran underground in tight tunnels. There was an unclaimed prize for any engineer who could work out how to fit air conditioning to the carriages. The temperature in a broken-down train in the rush hour, when passengers were packed into a stationary mass, climbed quickly past blood heat until people started passing out. No one had actually died yet, but it had to happen one day.

  The driver came on the intercom. “We are being held on a red light, so there must be some sort of delay up ahead. I haven’t been informed of any special problem over the radio, so I assume that we will be moving soon. I will let you know in the unlikely event that anyone tells me anything.”

  The driver switched off the intercom with an audible click, leaving the carriage in silence. The delay dragged on so Rhian checked the map above the seats. They must be just outside Whitechapel Station, on the way to Stepney Green. The carriage felt cold, and Rhian shivered. Someone had just trodden on her grave.

  She saw a flicker of motion at the edge of her vision, but when she looked there was no one there. It happened again and she heard faint whispers, echoing like hushed voices in a cathedral. The engines under the stationary train suddenly erupted in a loud chugga-chugga-chugga that made her jump. They did that at irregular intervals, but no-one seemed to know why.

  Without warning, the carriages lurched forward, banging against each other as they picked up power from the ground rails with different degrees of efficiency. The tube actually ran more smoothly when it was full. With no passengers, it tended to rattle about like an empty container ship. The whine of heavy-duty electric motors under load built up. Rhian had hopes that they were on t
heir way when the brakes came on again, slamming the cars to a halt.

  The shadow of another figure appeared in front of her. She reached for her ticket, glanced up to proffer it and her heart thumped. An old woman in a dirty brown shroud and long dress looked at her in puzzlement.

  “What do you want?” asked Rhian.

  The woman didn’t answer. She shimmered and Rhian could see through her to the empty bench seats opposite. Rhian’s mouth went dry. This had happened to her before on the tube. She found it upsetting, but the specters seemed to be tied to particular places, so they vanished as soon as the train passed on.

  The train moved. Speed was difficult to estimate in the dark tunnel, but Rhian concluded that they were travelling at a slow walking pace. More images flickered on the edge of her peripheral vision but faded when she looked directly at them. The whispering started again, building up until it filled the carriage like white noise in which Rhian could almost make out odd words. She fidgeted uneasily, never experiencing such a strong haunting before on a train.

  The carriage filled with specters that solidified as the train inched forward. A little girl in a threadbare coat and long skirt designed for an adult woman sidled right up to her and said something, actually spoke words.

  “Mummy, Mummy, it’s dark, Mummy and I don’t like it. Why won’t you come for me, Mummy? I’m frightened.”

  Rhian put her hands over her ears to shut it out, but the piping speech of the child was in her head. This had never happened before. The train door opened at a station, and Rhian wanted to jump out, but she could not bring herself to move through the ghostly figures.