Werewolves in London: Part III
I shivered as I stepped into the gloom of St. James Park. I could feel the chill of the dew coming off the grass and my cheekbone was throbbing where Eddie had clocked me. I zipped my jacket up to my chin and began to pick my way soundlessly towards the lake.
As I got closer I heard low growling, snuffling, and splashing and suddenly across the lake I could see a glittering pair of eyes looking right at me. I knelt low to the ground and held my breath. The splashing stopped, the eyes blinked and suddenly a terrifying howl echoed through the park.
This is the part I’m embarrassed to tell: I froze. I don’t know what came over me, but I was in sheer panic. Maybe because I knew how advanced Blinky was, or maybe I just really missed my gun, but all I know is, I felt like my feet were rooted to the ground and suddenly, large as life, there they were, standing in front of me.
Eddie held the leash tightly as Blinky foamed at the mouth. His eyes were yellow and wild and he growled ferociously, but his transformation was still incomplete, stunted. I could see Eddie’s face in the pale moonlight. Cool and masterful. He wasn’t running anymore and he wasn’t protecting anyone.
“You shouldn’t have followed us.”
“What did you drug him with?”
“Luposhank oil.”
“Luposhank oil! Why that? Sure it prevents full transformation, but almost guarantees transmission…” I looked at him in horror. “You counted on that.”
“Aren’t you clever. Yes, it’s crude but a decently effective tracking method.”
“For tracking what?”
“Blinky’s conquests — all homosexuals of course. He’s disgusting,” he spat.
I cut off his moronic homophobic tirade with impatience. “He could have killed someone! He could have killed you. And he’s probably past all possible remedy now…”
“He didn’t kill anyone. Yet. And if it’s irreversible then good. He brought it on himself. Maybe, you can’t see it, but this is his truest form. You should have seen him at Cambridge. There wasn’t a lad that was safe. Homo or not, somehow he convinced them.”
“And then he tried to convince you, is that it?” Realization flooding through me.
Eddie’s face contorted in anger. “As if I wanted any part of his filth.”
“So why hang out with him? Just leave him be.” I protested.
Eddie sniffed. “He’s family. And it’s not public anyhow. Couldn’t very well just cut him.”
“So how’d you infect him?” I demanded, getting back to the point.
“Ha! That’s the beauty of it. He infected himself. Some rotter up in Newcastle, I expect. Came down here four months ago and had a fit right there in my flat one night. Almost killed me.”
“But he didn’t.”
“I tased him.”
“Why do you have a taser?!”
“That’s not important. What’s important is what you do now. Now that you’ve know. I can’t let you go.” He tossed something heavy and metal into the grass in front of me. “Put those on.”
“Handcuffs? You have a taser and handcuffs. And you’re judging your cousin because he’s gay?”
“Put them on!” Eddie squealed like a disappointed child preparing to throw a tantrum.
Stalling for all I was worth. “Hold on. Let me just get this right. If I put on these handcuffs, I somehow don’t end up dead or infected, or tased because apparently now that’s on the table — ”
“Shut up!” He screamed. “If you put them on, I don’t unleash Blinky on you right now and god knows what he might do to you if I did that.”
I knelt down in the grass and picked up the handcuffs slowly, keeping my eye on Eddie and Blinky. I slowly and carefully placed one of the cuffs around my left wrist. All of a sudden, I heard a thwick and Blinky hit the ground with a thud. Realizing the game had changed, Eddie threw the leash to the ground and grabbed me by the arm.
“Put your hands up, you are surrounded!”
“Don’t shoot,” he yelled, pinning my arms behind my back and holding me in front of him like a human shield, frantically spinning trying to figure out where the voice was coming from.
“Let go of her and put your hands in the air.”
“Like hell I will. We’re walking out of here. Then I’ll let her go.”
He started to shove me back towards the street, and we began a shuffling, awkward tango towards the edge of the park. I closed my hand around the grip of the taser I’d shoved into my waistband.
“It’s really a shame you know, Eddie. I kind of liked you.” Delicately easing my wrist up to get the taser out of my belt.
“Shut up.” He hissed. “And stop trying to get your hands free. You’re just going to get us both shot.”
In one motion, I jerked the wrist with the handcuffs up and swung around smacking Eddy in the face with the free handcuff, squared up to him and tasered him right in the chest. He collapsed on the ground, face frozen in a hideous grimace of pain and disbelief.
I leaned down and murmured to him. “Oh yeah. I forgot to mention. I’m into tasers too. We could have been such a great couple.”
Suddenly, the police force flooded around us. A constable cuffed Eddie, and a grey-faced Graeme limped to my side.
“You all right?”
“Absolutely topping! As soon as I get this handcuff on my wrist.”
“You know no one says topping any more, right? Since like 1935?”
“Whatever.”
At the nearest precinct, they booked Eddie and Graeme took down my statement for his report.
He shook his head in disbelief. “So he knowingly kept his cousin drugged to spread the infection as much as possible? How did he even find out about that drug?”
“Honestly, that is an excellent question. There are very few people who know how to treat lycanthropism and even fewer who know about Luposhank oil. It’s essentially a biological weapon, when used in tandem with a pack of lycanthropes… Well, you can imagine. In the UK, which is worse a hate crime or biological terrorism?”
“Don’t worry Angie. We’re going to put him away. Hopefully for life.”
A constable knocked on the door on the conference room we had commandeered and poked his head in.
“‘E also had this book on ‘im, sir.” The constable handed over a pocket sized leather bound black book.
Graeme paged through it, “Men from many of the prominent families.” He passed it to me. In Eddie’s neat, supercilious hand was a list of names, some of which were already in my contact tracing diagram.
“A black list.” I breathed.
“And what was he going to do with that, I wonder?” Graeme looked at me grimly.
“Nothing good. In the end he did us a favor, though. We need to make sure all of these people have been treated. And their other partners. I’ve treated some of them already, but it’s far more extensive than I realized. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“We’ll pull together some community response teams for tomorrow morning. Can you train some medics with the proper protocol?”
I nodded wearily. “You should get some rest. You must be in excruciating pain.”
The constable poked his head into our room once more.
“Excuse me sir. Marm.”
Graeme looked at him expectantly.
“Gentleman arrived, says he’s a friend of the gentlemen from the club, was concerned, wished to inquire… mentioned kidnapping.”
“Sure we’ll talk to him.”
Graeme shrugged his eyebrows and turned towards me. “I’ve had worse. Rest can wait. Let’s see what this gentleman has to say.”
A willowy youth with a spiky hair, serious gray eyes, and some expensive designer clothes shuffled into our presence.
Graeme looked at him intently. “You wished to report a kidnapping?”
“Well, I’m not sure, you see, that’s just the trouble. It’s just that. My friend and his cousin. Well when they left the club, the Blue O, it just seemed off. Like they were coerced. And my friend has been acting so strange the past few months. I just don’t know what’s been happening with him. I might be wrong, but better safe than sorry.”
“I see and what is you friend’s name?” Graeme took up a pen and his notepad to make notes.
“Heathcliff Basington. But we all called him Blinky. Silly name. He had it since childhood though. What’s worse, Heathcliff or Blinky right?”
Graeme looked at him severely, but said nothing.
“Right. Anyway, so he’s been acting strangely for months, really ever since he came back from Newcastle and his cousin, who I thought hated him, started hanging out with him again, Edward Leydon, his father’s a lord, so stuffy.”
“But you’re a friend of his…”
“Well…” The young man blushed. “I wanted it to be more, but he — he didn’t want to tell his family, so it couldn’t really be more. He didn’t want anyone to know about us, but I didn’t see the point of that in this day and age. We had a terrific row and he took off for Newcastle with some older man just to spite me. Then he comes back to town and he’s partying every night, like he’s back at uni. I hadn’t seen him much, but the few times I do, he’s just bizarre, I couldn’t understand what was going on with him. Anyway, I was hanging out with him tonight at the Blue O and he gets piss drunk. His cousin helps him to the bathroom and then there’s some big disturbance and they disappeared. I’ve been texting him and calling, but nothing. Went by his flat, and Eddie’s, but no sign of either of them. I just… I don’t trust Eddie not to abandon him somewhere and I don’t know. I’m probably just stirring up trouble.”
During this recital I’ve been watching Graeme’s face melt from his professional coolness into sympathy I never suspected he could summon.
“What’s your name?” Graeme inquired more gently.
“Nathan. Nathan Young.”
“Nathan, I’m afraid I have rather some bad news. Your friend Heathcliff is dead. He had a very severe infection — “
“What! But he was fine. He was drinking with us not two hours ago. No. It must be someone else.” He shook his head in disbelief and tried to get up from the table.
I chimed in firmly, but in what I hoped was a sympathetic tone, “Nathan, it was definitely him. And this is going to be hard to process, but Blinky had stage four lycanthropy and as a result of this infection, he physically assaulted and almost killed Agent Humphries here, and he was killed by police officers who were protecting themselves and me.”
Nathan stopped, dropped into his chair, and just stared at me a moment, still uncomprehending. “Lycanthropy…? He’s not a violent person. It’s not like him to just attack someone. What the hell is that?
“Put more simply, the disease turned him into a werewolf.” I delivered it as clinically as I could.
“A werewolf? That’s ridic — ”
“I know it’s very strange to hear, but this infection can be cured if treated early enough. It’s just very, very rare. And that’s why I need your help.”
“How? He’s already dead.” Nathan looked at me in defiant bitterness. “What can I possibly do now?”
“You said he ran off with some older man to Newcastle. Do you know who he was? Or anything about him?”
“I just know he was older, his name was Craig, and he was a reporter. Wrote for some magazine out of Newcastle.”
“You don’t know his last name?”
Shaking his head. “No, just Craig. I can’t believe this right now. He turned into a werewolf, is what you’re saying to me? And where’s Eddie? What’s happened to him? Is he a werewolf too?”
“No.” Graeme took control of the conversation once more. “But he’s committed some serious crimes and we will need to take your statement about your friend and what you observed about his behavior.” Raising his voice, “Hi, Perkins!”
“Sir?” The constable was at the door in a moment.
“Can you please see that Mr. Young gives a statement to DI Brinley? I believe, she’s just in her office.”
I rose with the crushed and grey-faced Nathan and walked him down the hall. I could tell he was holding back tears, but at some effort.
“I’m very sorry for your loss Nathan. If you remember anything else about Craig, will you please let me know?” I slipped him my card and gave him a serious look, “I need to find out about how this happened to Blinky. It’s very important to keep it from happening to anyone else.”
He nodded in silence, slipped the card in his pocket and followed the constable down the rest of the hall towards DI Brinley’s office.
I turned to find Graeme at my shoulder. “Alright. That’s all for tonight, I should think. We both should get some rest. Meet at the field office at 0700?”
I nodded in silence, still pondering Nathan’s story about Craig.
“Angie.” I turned to back to Graeme. He leveled his no-nonsense gaze at me. “I just wanted to say. It’s been a privilege. You’re good at what you do.”
I mustered a nod of thanks and slipped out the station door.
Finally back at my hotel, I dropped exhausted into bed, but I couldn’t sleep. My brain played on loop the dull thud off Blinky dropping to the ground and Nathan’s ashen face when reality sunk in. Sure, nothing could have saved Blinky at that point, but what if I gotten my shit together and figured this all out a week ago? Could I have saved him then? Possibly. And who else had progressed beyond recovery while I was busy shagging a murderously homophobic sociopath? No, I felt no relief; all I felt was shame and remorse. Graeme’s words just rankled. I am good at what I do, but this was not my best work. I had to get to the bottom of whatever my mother was hiding or I was just going to continue delivering shoddy, half-assed work to desperate nations, and ruining who knows how many more lives. I’d been getting texts for a few days from a frantic Minister of the Interior in Sweden, but I gave them a referral. After I clean up this mess, I decided, I’m heading for home — and I’m not leaving without an answer.
Thanks for reading! Catch up on Parts I and II at the links below.
I jerked awake in a strange and stuffy London flat, light streaming through a half-closed dusty, velvet curtain.medium.com
A huge, swollen moon rose above the treetops in Soho as I waited around the corner from the Blue O. Perfect.medium.com
For another story about Angie: A Freelance Specialist in Previously-Assumed-Mythical Beings, read…
