Саймон Морден - The White City

‘I don’t want to hear it, Crows. Shut the fuck up.’

‘Ah well. Perhaps another time then.’ The next large wave sucked the boat out further.

‘There won’t be another time. When I see you next, I…’

‘What? You will kill me? I have done you no harm, Mary. I have saved you three times now. Once from Daniel, once from Bell, and now from the maps. They would have only brought you misery: best to let them go without regret.’

‘They were our maps. We were going to use them to go home.’

‘They were Bell’s maps. Then my maps. Then your maps. They were other people’s maps before they were Bell’s, and now they are mine again.’ The boat rocked, and Crows held on to the side. It was properly afloat now, and there was clear water between it and the beach.

‘Crows?’ Mary looked behind her. The Wolfman and his men were barely halfway towards them. ‘Crows? What are you doing?’

‘It is a shame you did not want to hear my story,’ he called. ‘It would have explained much.’

She walked into the sea up to her knees, but she knew the beach shelved away steeply after that. If she went much further, she’d have to swim.

‘Crows,’ she called. ‘What about the Wolfman?’

‘Please extend to him my deep sorrow at having to break our contract so early on. Such is the ever-changing nature of life.’

The boat was moving further away, and though his voice carried clearly, Crows was dwindling into the distance.

‘Crows. You have to stay.’

‘I regret that I am done on this shore. Farewell, Mary.’

‘What about Luiza?’

‘They will release her. They have no reason not to.’ With that, Crows’ head dropped from view.

Dazed, she reached out her arms and shouted: ‘Come back. Crows. Come back.’

She lost her footing, and the next wave bore her up and back towards the beach. She floundered to her feet, dripping wet, to see the Wolfman running past Dalip, towards her◦– no, towards the shrinking shape of the boat.

‘Hey!’ He splashed into the sea, raising a wave of his own. ‘Hey! Crows! We had a deal!’

Without sail or oars, the stern moved steadily away. White water started to break around it as it bobbed through the region where the waves started to rise, towards the open sea. The Wolfman pushed out further, his wolfskin cloak becoming more bedraggled with each step.

‘Crows!’

His wolves remained on the beach, running backwards and forwards, heads rising to yelp and yip. Their chain leashes rattled.

‘He’s not coming back,’ said Mary, to herself and the Wolfman. ‘He’s leaving without us.’

The Wolfman found the drop-off, and went from thigh-deep to neck-deep in a matter of moments. He gasped and splashed.

‘Crows!’

She turned her frustration on him. ‘Don’t you get it, you fucking idiot? He played you just like he played us. He’s got everything he wanted, and we’ve got nothing.’

The Wolfman found his feet and waded quickly back to dry land. His jaw was set and he was breathing hard. Further away, the man holding Luiza had come to a halt, uncertain what to do. The other man with him was, in turn, shouting back to the two more distant figures at the top of the dune.

Mary took a second to register the situation: everyone was angry, afraid, and upset. She’d seen this before: yes, it was a beach, but it was also very street. As much as she wanted to set off after Crows◦– and she could, she realised◦– it would mean leaving this incendiary mix to combust all on its own.

She started for the shore herself, lifting her sodden skirts clear of the water. She stared meaningfully at Dalip, who had stopped looking at the wolves for long enough to realise what was going on.

His hand flexed around the handle of the machete, and she deliberately, subtly, shook her head. She pointed at Elena and Mama, and began to innocently make her way towards them.

The Wolfman bent over, hands on his knees, gasping. His wolves trotted around him, high-stepping out of the surf, alternately gazing out to sea and then looking up at their master. He straightened up, wiped his nose with his sleeve, and tilted his head back.

His scream of rage and abandonment went on for so long that Mary thought that it sounded more wolf than man. The wolves crumbled to dust, their chains lasting for a moment longer before they too flowed into the sand.

Mary and Dalip stood shoulder to shoulder, making a wall of their bodies to protect Mama and Elena. They were both tensed and ready.

The Wolfman didn’t even look in their direction. He strode out, walking quickly for a few steps, then broke into a loping run, back up the beach, towards his men.

‘What’s he doing?’ asked Dalip.

‘Fuck knows.’ They were suddenly alone. ‘We need to get everyone together, and, and…’

‘And what?’

‘Get after Crows.’ She looked over her shoulder. The boat was only a black speck now, bobbing up and down with the waves. She looked back, and felt Dalip stiffen. The Wolfman was still running. His long knife was in his hand and he was heading straight for the man holding on to Luiza. ‘No. He can’t.’

Dalip put his head down and sprinted, and she began to do the same, before realising that neither of them was going to make it in time. She had to hope that it wasn’t as bad as it looked, that nothing was going to happen, that he was just running off his fury.

The Wolfman seemed to punch Luiza in the stomach so hard that she folded almost in two around his fist. The man holding her couldn’t untangle his fingers from her hair fast enough to just let her drop to the ground; instead, she hung there, hands trying to fend off her attacker, pushing ineffectually at his face and chest.

The Wolfman stepped back, and she flopped on the sand, at first to her knees, then toppling hard on to her side. Her head hit the ground, and didn’t move.

Dalip ran a few more steps, and stopped. Mary walked slowly forward until she was almost, but not quite, within arm’s length of the Wolfman.

The man held up his bloodied hand. He was soaked to the elbow.

‘Why did you do that?’ she asked him.

‘Revenge,’ he said.

‘But—’

‘Revenge on Down. Revenge on you and him and everything.’ He shook his fist at her. ‘Do what you will. I’m done with this place.’

‘You stabbed her.’

Dalip knelt down and his hand hovered over Luiza, uncertain as to what to do next. He brushed her hair from her cheek. Her eyes were wide open and unblinking. He looked up at Mary. ‘I… she’s…’

Elena tumbled down next to her cousin, and threw her arms around her. She gathered her up, and the way that Luiza’s head lolled, her mouth opening slightly, left no doubt. There was no breath left in her, no heartbeat, no light.

Mary already knew. It wasn’t like she was a stranger to it.

‘You didn’t need to do… that. You just didn’t.’

‘You’re wrong. So very wrong, you little black whore. I did need to do it. I’m going to keep on doing it from now on. Kill and kill and kill until there’s no one left on Down. And there’s no Bell or Crows to stop me.’

Dalip stood up and scrubbed a tear away with the back of his hand. ‘I’ll stop you.’

The Wolfman laughed in his face and lunged at him with his bloody knife. Dalip parried, once, twice, then launched his own counter-attack, stepping surely over the uneven, shifting surface as he swung and swung at the Wolfman’s weapon hand.

Mary could end this, quickly and simply. Conjure up a storm of sand and thrust it down the Wolfman’s nose and throat, choke him and let him die, clawing at his heaving chest. But Dalip seemed intent on finishing it himself. His face was expressionless, save for the slight furrowing of his brows, and his body moved in a ballet of blows and blocks that defied his opponent’s crude violence.