Саймон Морден - Down Station

‘Mary, when you turn into a bird, how do you do it?’

‘How? I just… I don’t know. I just can. I want to be it, and there I am. Some big-arse bird.’

‘And the first time, what happened?’

‘I grew wings. Bell’s dragon cut me open, and when I got the boilersuit off, I had wings. I really don’t know how this works.’ She stopped, and asked: ‘Why?’

‘So you can turn into a hawk, she can turn into a dragon, this man Crows turns into a sea serpent. I think Stanislav can turn into something, too. Something not good. Very strong.’ He struggled with the whole idea, even though he himself may have been changed, and was in the process of changing. ‘Do you get a choice?’

‘Of what you change into?’ Mary shrugged. ‘Maybe, but I think you just become whatever it is that suits you best. Have you got any idea of what he’s going to be?’

He knew. ‘It’s a wolf. He’s going to be a wolf.’

‘There is a thing, where you get stuck as an animal, and you forget what you were. Is that what’s happened to him?’

‘No,’ said Dalip. He thought about the conversation he’d had, about wolves and sheep. ‘I think he’s got stuck halfway. A wolfman, who’s actually part-wolf, part-man.’

‘A werewolf. Fucking hell. How the fuck do we deal with that?’

‘Silver,’ said Luiza. ‘We need silver.’

Dalip’s mouth had gone dry. ‘We don’t have any silver, whether or not we can make weapons out of it, and anyway, if he’s just like Mary or Bell, they don’t need anything special to hurt them. But I should be able to talk him down. He’ll listen to me.’

‘You’re kidding yourself, right? Dalip, he’s gone crazy. This isn’t like telling a mate not to do something stupid. He’s gone way beyond that.’

‘She is right, Dalip. He is a danger to everyone.’ Luiza poked him in the chest. ‘Especially you.’

‘Why me?’

‘Because you will not treat him with care. You will remember him as he was, not as he is. In that moment, he will kill you.’

‘He’s not going to kill me,’ said Dalip, and realised he was lying to himself. Loyalty again; misplaced loyalty. ‘Okay. Maybe he’ll try. We◦– I◦– have to find him first. Go back upstairs. I’ll do—’

He was at a loss. What was he supposed to do? Warn the remaining guards for certain. Track Stanislav down and confront him in whatever form he’d taken, and stop him from killing his way through the castle’s inhabitants. He’d have to keep him at bay while he talked to him. He could do that. Stanislav had, ironically, taught him well. And if that didn’t work, if it came down to a fight: he’d been taught how to do that, too.

‘I can help,’ said Mary. ‘I’ll be able to spot him, if he’s outside, and if you’re right about him being a wolf, I can just fly out of reach. Luiza, go and tell the others what we’re doing. Don’t leave the room until one of us tells you it’s safe.’

‘What if he comes for us?’

‘You throw everything you have at him. Including Bell if you have to.’ Mary moved uncomfortably, her wounds raw.

Luiza left them the lantern and scurried up the last few turns of the stairs, leaving Dalip and Mary not staring at each other.

‘Do you,’ he said, ‘want me to find you a pair of trousers, or something?’

‘Because running around in my pants makes me feel like a fucking superhero, right?’ She blew out a breath, long and heartfelt. ‘If you’re hiding a pair of jeans somewhere, then yes. Otherwise, we’re just wasting time.’

Under normal circumstances, he’d have found it distracting. He was used to women covering up. These weren’t normal circumstances, and she wasn’t a Sikh. ‘I can cope if you can.’

‘This is fucking stupid, you know that? We’re just kids, and we’re hunting an actual werewolf.’

‘It would be even more stupid if you couldn’t turn into a giant bird of prey.’

‘That’s actually a good point. We can do this, can’t we?’

Dalip pulled a face. ‘No one else is up for it, so I’m game if you are.’

‘You really are a posh kid.’ But she smiled as she said it.

‘Doesn’t mean I’m bad or wrong.’

‘You’re all right really. What first?’

‘Let’s find the guards. They don’t deserve this.’

They dismantled the rest of the barricade and checked the whole of the downstairs area. There were more store rooms off the main kitchen, and each one involved a sweaty-palmed grip of the latch and a flinging wide of the door, expecting to be attacked in a flurry of fur and teeth, and gratefully disappointed when it didn’t happen.

‘Outside, then,’ said Dalip. The doorway, with its broken door on the floor was full of wind and noise. ‘This castle was grown? Seriously?’

‘It’s weird, but it’s true.’

‘I should be getting used to that, but I don’t think I ever will.’ He stuck his head out and remembered to look up and behind him at the wall. The sky, black already, was low and heavy and churning with cloud. The invisible moon was no help, and the unattended fire in the courtyard burned low and fitful.

‘You go first,’ said Mary. ‘You’ve got the knife.’

He looked at it, its broad blade and short length. ‘Something longer would be so much better. My grandfather had a sword, a proper sword: he even used it during the war.’

‘He’s not here though, is he? You are, and that’s what we’ve got.’

When they both stepped outside, they were surprised at the violence of the weather. The gusty wind took hold of them and shook them hard. To the south, behind the bulk of the mountain, lightning flickered.

‘It’s only a storm, not like before,’ said Mary. She clutched at Dalip’s arm. ‘Fuck me, it’s cold.’

‘I did say.’

The grass was sharp and brittle under their feet as they trotted across to the guard house. Lights glimmered from the window slits, and more ominously, from the open door.

Dalip slowed, and he pulled Mary back.

‘We don’t want to fight them. But they won’t be happy. We’ve turned everything upside down for them.’

‘Fuck them.’

‘We still need to be careful.’

Dalip crossed the remaining distance, past the fire, to the steps up. The door was sideways in the doorway, deep scratches running against the grain of the wood. He leant it against the wall, and beckoned Mary in.

‘This isn’t good,’ she whispered.

‘Worked that out for myself.’

The room inside had a fire in the grate, drawing hard in the draught, crackling hard and burning bright. Chairs and tables were strewed across the floor, overturned, some broken, plates and mugs mixed in with the debris. There was a closed door in each of the far corners.

‘Left or right?’

‘Both of them, eventually. So it doesn’t matter.’ He thought of his grandfather, waving his age-spotted sword and screaming his defiance like he was still a young man facing his enemies. Then, the war-cries had been a party piece: now, he was repeating them silently, his tongue and lips finding their way around the syllables and accents of his ancestors. ‘Left.’

He picked his way across the floor, trying to be as quiet as possible, though he didn’t exactly know why. He put his fingertips against the door, gave it a little shove: it creaked a little, a crack of weak light opening out. He glanced around at Mary, who was busy shoving a fallen crust into her mouth.

‘What?’ she said, spitting out crumbs. ‘I’m fucking starving.’

He rolled his eyes and put the flat of his hand to the wood. The door swung aside.

It took a moment, then a moment longer, then a very long moment that only ended when Mary reached past him, leaning out around him so she didn’t have to set foot inside that back room, and pulled the door shut again.