Verasa had a brief yearning for Kalix to settle down and live out her life peacefully on the family estates. It was very brief. The Mistress of the Werewolves always wished the best for her family, but really, she couldn't see Kalix coming to a peaceful end.

CHAPTER 26.

Kalix sat upstairs on the bus feeling small, lonely, and hopeless. She didn't know what she was going to say to Gawain. She didn't even know if she should be going to meet him. In the days since she'd received his letter, she seemed to have gone through every possible emotion: joy at hearing from him, rage at the memory of his betrayal, and misery at the knowledge she might be about to experience it all again. Unable to sort out her feelings, Kalix became depressed. As often happened, this led to serious anxiety, so that, by the time she set out for Camberwell, she hadn't eaten for days, hadn't slept properly, and was existing mainly on laudanum and Daniel's beer.

She shuddered in her seat. If only Gawain hadn't slept with her sister. She could have forgiven him anything else. But not Thrix. It was too much to take. Since then, Kalix's feelings towards Thrix had vacillated between hatred and a dull, hopeless antagonism. As for her feelings towards Gawain...They had begun their relationship when Kalix was just fourteen. That wasn't quite as taboo amongst werewolves as it would have been amongst humans, but it was still too young for the liking of the Thane. Gawain had been banished from the castle.

Kalix stared at her boots as the bus trundled through South London. Camberwell wasn't far from her home in Kennington. She'd be there soon. What was Gawain going to say? Was he going to tell her he still loved her and ask her back? What would she say then?

Kalix remembered how Gawain had put his life at risk by returning to the castle to look for her. She also remembered how he'd secretly made the journey to Kennington to watch over her while the clan was trying to capture her. Even when Gawain knew Kalix hated him, he'd carried on the silent task of protecting her. He'd fought at her side during the great battle with Sarapen. He'd told her how much he loved her. But then he also started an affair with her sister.

Kalix just didn't know what to make of it all. She felt herself trembling even though she'd dosed herself liberally with laudanum. She gnawed at her lip. To divert herself from her anxiety, she turned to look out the window. The pane was heavily graffitied, not with ink or paint, but with scratches. There were names deeply embedded in the glass. Kalix couldn't read them. The jagged letters were too stylized for her to make out.

When the bus arrived in Camberwell, Kalix crept off with her head bowed. A few passengers downstairs looked curiously at her as she passed. Though spring was near, it was a chilly day, with gray skies and a cold wind that tugged at Kalix's hair as she crossed the open expanse of Camberwell Green. The streets were lined with small shops, bars, and cheap letting agencies, and the streets were busy. Outside a sports supplies shop Kalix had to pause as another bus pulled up and a great crowd of passengers surged towards it. She found herself jostled by a group of youths, young boys and their girlfriends in tracksuits and sportswear who shot Kalix contemptuous glances, not liking the look of her shabby clothes, or her mass of hair, or the ring through her nose.

Kalix ignored them and hurried on round the corner. As she trudged on, she felt like a great weight was crushing her into the ground. She turned the final corner and halted abruptly. It struck her that, no matter what, she was still in love with Gawain. She experienced a moment of confusion and panic, then her anxiety lessened. At least she had some idea of what she felt. She was still in love with him. She remembered again that, before Gawain had taken up with Thrix, he'd thought that Kalix herself had formed a new relationship. It didn't excuse his behavior, but it made it not quite so bad.

Kalix found the house. It was an old building, subdivided into small apartments and bedsits. Inside the porch there were a lot of doorbells, one for each apartment. Beside each was a small name tag, most of them illegible. Kalix didn't know which one to press, so she tried pushing the front door. It swung open. As she made her way up the dark staircase, she put her hand in her pocket and clutched Gawain's letter for comfort. She could smell Gawain's werewolf scent and followed it up the stairs.

At the top of the building, she paused. This was it. She raised her hand to knock on the dark, stained door then halted. Something was wrong. The smell wasn't right. Kalix knocked on the door. And then, without waiting for an answer, she smashed her hand into the wood, just above the lock. The door gave way, buckling under her tremendous strength. Kalix leapt inside, scared of what she might find.

She didn't have far to look. Gawain was lying in the hallway, face down. A great pool of dark blood had congealed around his body. Kalix threw herself at him, taking him by the shoulder and turning him over. Then she was forced to acknowledge what really she'd known before she broke down the door. She'd scented too much dried blood for it to be otherwise. Gawain had a terrible wound in his heart. He was dead, and he'd been dead for some time.

CHAPTER 27.

Kalix sat down beside the body, took hold of Gawain's cold hand, and started to cry. She didn't think about what might have happened or what she should be doing; she just sat and cried.

She was still sitting by his dead body when a werewolf hunter kicked open the front door and rushed into the small flat. Kalix leapt to her feet and flew at him, kicking him so savagely in the midriff that he doubled over and crashed to the floor. She raised her foot to stamp on him. Even as a human, she was strong enough to kill him. At that moment, another hunter appeared at the door with a gun in his hand. He reacted quickly, aiming his pistol, but Kalix was too fast. Before he could squeeze the trigger, she'd tackled him, and they crashed back into the hall outside the flat, with Kalix using her fists to beat him to the ground. The hallway was dark, but it lit up suddenly as someone threw the switch downstairs, and there was the sound of many heavily booted feet running up the stairs. Kalix hesitated for a second. Though always ready to fight, she was not quite as reckless in combat as a human as she was as a werewolf. She knew she was at a serious disadvantage in the open against so many armed hunters.

She turned and ran, arriving back in the apartment just as the first hunter was rising to his feet. Kalix struck him with her forearm and he slumped again to the floor. She slammed the door shut in the face of a group of hunters who'd appeared at the top of the stairs, and managed to bolt it. She sniffed the air. Winter was passing but the days were still short. The moon was already visible, a tiny sliver in the sky. Soon night would fall and she could transform. Then she would kill them all. Kalix had no thought of fleeing. She was going to kill every one of the hunters who'd killed Gawain.

The hunters started beating on the door, shouting out to their companion who lay at Kalix's feet. The door shook as they tried to force it open, and Kalix desperately used her strength to hold it shut. She had to survive till night fell. She held the door shut with all her might, but though she was strong, her stamina was limited. As a werewolf, Kalix was imbued with ferocious power, but as a girl, she wasn't. She didn't take enough care of herself. She ate too little and took too much laudanum. Her human muscles quickly began to tire, and the door began to splinter under the weight of blows.

"Shoot through the door!" someone shouted. Seconds later there was a loud explosion, and a bullet tore through the woodwork, zipping past Kalix's ear. The young werewolf gasped in fear and anger. It was unusual for werewolf hunters to use silver bullets against a werewolf in human form. Kalix let go of the door and leapt backwards, but not before another bullet had ripped through the panel. It went straight through Kalix's left hand. She screamed in pain. The silver, so deadly to werewolves, burned as it penetrated her flesh. As the front door burst open, Kalix hurdled Gawain's body and sprinted for the back of the small flat, ending up in a tiny kitchen with a small window so dark that whatever was outside couldn't be seen. Kalix heard another gunshot and carried on running. She leapt straight for the window. The glass and wood disintegrated, tearing her flesh as she went through. Next moment she found herself in midair, rapidly descending towards a small concrete yard three floors below.

That instant, the sun dipped below the horizon, and night fell. Kalix instantly changed into her werewolf form and landed on all fours, shaken, but undamaged. There were shouts from above as the hunters leaned out of the small broken window, looking for her.

"She's escaped!"

Kalix flattened herself against the wall then jumped a long way in the air, grabbing hold of the roof of what appeared to be a garage. From there, she leapt onto a drainpipe then again towards another pipe. Now out of sight of the hunters, she made her way up to the roof. Kalix could no longer feel the pain in her damaged hand, nor the bruises from her fall. She'd entered her state of battle madness and could feel only the overwhelming desire to destroy her enemies.

She ran across the roof with the vague notion that there might be some sort of skylight. Finding none, she hurried to the edge of the roof and leaned over. She could smell the hunters downstairs and hear their excited voices behind the broken window. Further off, there was a hubbub of voices, but Kalix ignored them, focusing on her prey. The werewolf swung herself off of the roof and took one leap towards the drainpipe and another towards the shattered window. She crashed back into the tiny kitchen, where she was confronted by a startled-looking hunter, a very tall man who looked down at her with dismay. Kalix could still smell Gawain's blood from along the hallway. It maddened her even more. She swung her claw at the hunter, and her brutal strike almost decapitated him. As he fell, his blood spurted over Kalix, covering her face as she rushed past him to find more victims.

As she arrived in the hallway, the two remaining werewolf hunters were still taking their guns from their holsters. The first one never got any further. Kalix leapt on him, put her teeth around his throat, shook him like a doll, then threw his body at the remaining hunter. Both crashed backwards. The second hunter had by this time got his gun out and fired but it discharged harmlessly into the ceiling. Kalix leapt on her prey, first biting the wrist that held the gun then stamping with her taloned foot on the man's chest with such power that his ribs caved in and blood rushed from his mouth. Kalix took the other hunter in her jaws, tossed him against the wall, then slashed his throat with her claws. Satisfied that he was dead, she turned to deal with the remaining hunter and was disappointed to find that he was dead as well. She growled and ripped her talons through his throat anyway, just in case.

The dull hubbub of voices she'd heard earlier intensified, and there were footsteps on the stairs outside. Kalix looked up, an insane light in her eyes, hoping that more hunters were going to arrive so she could kill them. They all deserved to die for what they'd done to Gawain. The thought of Gawain pulled her back a little from her battle madness. His body still lay in the hallway. Kalix crossed again to his side and stared down at his body. Surely she couldn't just leave him here.

There was a violent knocking from the end of the hallway.

"Police! Open the door."

Had the police arrived a few seconds earlier, Kalix would have killed them, unable to differentiate between them and the werewolf hunters. But the sight of Gawain lying dead in the hallway had helped bring her back to reality. She looked around despairingly at the carnage everywhere, at the bodies, and at the blood over all the walls and carpet, and she felt the blood dripping from her own talons and jaws. She couldn't let herself be found like this. The repercussions of confronting the police as a werewolf would be endless. The trouble would never go away. She'd never be able to avenge Gawain. Kalix already intended to exact a terrible revenge for his death.

The door had been bolted again by the hunters as they chased Kalix inside, but weakened as it was, it wouldn't keep out the police for more than a few seconds. Kalix took one last agonized look at her dead lover then ran back to the kitchen. For the second time, she exited via the window. Her werewolf agility allowed her to twist in midair and catch hold of the drainpipe. She slid safely down to the ground then vaulted onto a garage roof. From there, she hurried across to the next rooftop. With her acute senses, Kalix could still hear raised voices in the flat below as the police swarmed in. She leapt towards the next slate-gray roof, but even as she traveled in midair, she sensed something that immediately caught her attention. In the street below, almost concealed behind a parked van, stood Duncan Douglas-MacPhee. Or so it seemed to Kalix, though she only saw his face for a fraction of a second. When Kalix landed, she looked again, but there was no sign of him. The young werewolf longed to run back and find out what the Douglas-MacPhee was doing there, but at that moment another two police vans arrived in the street below. She had to leave. By the time police officers climbed out onto the roof, Kalix MacRinnalch was far away, hidden in the darkness, still covered in the blood of her victims.

CHAPTER 28.

Queen Malveria, First Minister Xakthan, and Councilor Distikka walked through the gloriously illuminated Corridor of Splendor that connected the council chambers to the queen's own reception rooms at the palace. The Corridor of Splendor was encrusted with diamonds. The Fire Elementals had a great many diamonds of white, of blue, and of yellow. Though valuable, they were not rare enough for the queen to wear them in her realm, and she saved her diamond jewelry for visits to Earth. If she wanted to impress her fellow Elementals, the queen wore her Santorini necklace.

The queen's heels clacked on the hard floor, in contrast to the soft tread of Xakthan, who was dressed as always in the restrained court-attire of the queen's councilors. The small figure of Distikka tramped along behind them. She wore boots that were more suited to warfare than palace meetings. That was unusual, but Distikka was an unusual woman. She was clad in a shirt of dark chain-mail. An empty scabbard hung by her side. It was forbidden to carry weapons in the palace, and Distikka occasionally gave the impression that she resented it. She had, after all, been promoted to the council by the queen after her efficient handling of the dissatisfied citizens of Cho, a village in the western desert. This had left most of the citizens dead, but, as the queen said, it had certainly ended the problem. Distikka was now the only female Elemental on the queen's council, and Malveria had given her the title of personal advisor. She was not a popular figure among the other councilors, but she was acknowledged to be efficient.

First Minister Xakthan was very popular. He'd always been a loyal ally of the queen. It made it all the more galling that Xakthan now seemed reluctant to let drop a matter that she would much rather have avoided.

"First Minister," said Malveria. "Did I not make it clear that I didn't want to discuss the succession again?"

"I intended not to raise the matter. Our agenda was to discuss the site for our new armaments foundry, but..." He trailed off.

The queen frowned, as she had done for much of the meeting. While discussing the factory, it had been mentioned by some councilor or other that the Sword-Makers Guild, loyal supporters of the queen, had expressed concerns in private as to whether or not she was ever going to produce an heir. That had started the whole discussion again, much to the queen's annoyance. She didn't enjoy hearing her advisory council discussing possible suitors.

"One is not a prize heifer to be bred," the queen had said with displeasure.

It had quieted the council, but the problem wasn't going away. For some reason, the entire Hiyasta nation, from the first minister to the lowest serf, seemed to have developed an obsession with the heir to the throne.

It might have been better, reflected the queen, if she hadn't slaughtered every one of her surviving relatives after the war. There might be an heir in place by now. But it had been such a bloody affair, with all of her relatives leading armies and factions against her, that slaughtering them all seemed the natural thing to do. If she had left any of them alive, you could be sure they'd have led a rebellion by now or tried to seize control of the Great Volcano, something only a member of the royal family could do. Having left no members of her family alive, Malveria was very secure in her power over the volcano.

"If the queen doesn't want to discuss the succession, then the council should be quiet about it," declared Distikka.

The queen smiled. It was an opinion Distikka had voiced strongly several times in recent council meetings in the face of far more experienced and senior councilors. The queen appreciated her support. Distikka might be an odd character, with her small stature, her chain-mail, and her reputation for military violence, but she was proving to be a powerful supporter. She didn't take any nonsense from these elderly council members who seemed to want the queen to breed with the first half-suitable aristocrat who came along.

The Fire Queen was about to bid a gracious farewell to her advisors when she noticed her first minister raising his eyebrows. "Why are you raising your eyebrows in that pointed manner?"

"I believed we had concluded the meeting early in order for the queen to deliver an opinion on the timing of the next Fire Festival?"

The queen pursed her lips. It was true. She'd brought the meeting to an early close on the pretext that she had to perform those important calculations. The Fire Festival, or Vulcanalia, was an important event, but its precise timing was shrouded in mystery, requiring a combination of mathematics and divination that only the queen could perform. Malveria, however, was far keener to get on with the business of importing her new evening attire. Bringing clothes from Thrix's fashion house into the realm of the Fire Elementals also required expertise and sorcerous skill. A few ill-chosen words in the summoning spell, and one could easily end up with scorched fabric and missing buttons.

"Eh...other matters are pressing," said the queen. "Kindly remove that stern look from your face, First Minister. The calculations will be done in good time, I assure you."

"Time is pressing, and they can't be done by anyone else."

The queen tapped her foot on the diamond floor. She really should get on with making the calculations for the Vulcanalia, but she yearned to see her new evening gown. Thrix's drawings had been really fabulous.

"I can perform the necessary calculations," said Distikka.

Xakthan looked at her dubiously. "You can?"

Distikka nodded. She had short dark hair, rather boyishly cut. It was a style the queen herself had worn, a long time ago, during the war, though for many years now, her hair had been long and perfectly styled.

"Splendid," cried Malveria. "Well, Xakthan, no need to worry. Distikka will make the required calculations while I attend to other, more pressing business. Good day."

With that, the queen turned on her heel and departed swiftly, leaving behind her a rather discontented first minister.

"It's all very irregular," complained Xakthan, and he sighed. "The queen has always calculated the date of the Fire Festival before."

The first minister was troubled. He wasn't the only councilor who'd noticed that the queen seemed to be paying less and less attention to matters of state.

Malveria was already in her dressing room, pulling a dress from Thrix's warehouse through the dimensions. Her ladies in waiting gasped with pleasure as it appeared. The queen was gratified. It was just what she needed for her upcoming evening of whist. She'd suffered some uncomfortable moments at the card tables recently, but the dress revived her spirits. She felt she was capable of anything while wearing such a beautiful garment.

Adding to the queen's pleasure, today was one of the three days each week that Agrivex was absent from the palace.

"It is such a relief to be able to dress with the certain knowledge that my idiot niece will not barge in at some inappropriate moment," said Malveria to her nine dressers. They nodded in agreement, though none of them spoke. Preparing the queen for an evening engagement was a serious matter, and there was no time for idle talk.

CHAPTER 29.

It hadn't been a good day for Moonglow. Believing that the weather was improving, she'd worn a thin black jacket to college. It was new-or rather, new from a charity shop-and she'd wanted to show it off. Unfortunately, after the early morning sun, the day had turned very cold with some drizzle. Moonglow had shivered though her journey to college. Once there she realized she'd forgotten to update the file on the Sumerian poetry she was translating and she'd left her handwritten notes at home. Moonglow's tutor held her in high regard and didn't think for a moment that she hadn't done the work, but Moonglow still felt bad.

Making things worse, Daniel had apparently decided to be in a bad mood all day. Though this mood seemed to be directed mainly at Moonglow, he perversely chose to spend every available minute with her, rather than leaving her alone. When Moonglow met her friend Alicia for lunch, Daniel stood resolutely beside her as she lined up at the canteen, muttering about what a poor choice of food she'd made. Then he sat with them but spent the entire time in angry silence. It was a trying performance, one of Daniel's worst.

Moonglow knew why Daniel was in a bad mood. He was frustrated by her refusal to countenance having a relationship. She'd been tempted to inform him that hanging around a girl being grumpy all the time wasn't the best way to encourage a romance, but she refrained. Really, Moonglow felt very sorry about the whole thing. She knew she'd been close to going out with Daniel. She'd given him some quite obvious signals. Then she'd abruptly ceased all contact, as it were, without explanation. She could understand why he felt frustrated.

She wondered if she should just tell Daniel about her bargain with the Fire Queen, but she hesitated. If she did tell him, she could imagine Daniel making things worse by doing something foolish like insulting Malveria. That could be a disaster.

Though King's College was a prestigious university, there were parts of it that were surprisingly dilapidated. As Moonglow made her way into one of the older buildings, she found herself walking through a large puddle. Round the next corridor, she came across several workmen standing outside her tutor's room, struggling to contain the overflow from a leaking pipe in the ceiling. Her tutor was standing beside them, a resigned expression on his face.

"I told the dean these pipes were about to go," he said to the workmen. "Tutorial's canceled," he added to Moonglow.

Moonglow decided to go home. It hadn't been a very good day, and it was probably wise to give up, particularly as it would allow her to sneak away from college without Daniel catching up. As she made her way through the rain to the tube station, she wondered if they'd now be a couple had it not been for the Fire Queen's bargain. It was possible.

Moonglow's last relationship had been with Markus MacRinnalch. Markus was now Thane, but there had been a time when he was in such a poor state of mental and physical health that he'd been fit for nothing. Moonglow's love and attention had helped him recover. As Markus was a charismatic figure and beautiful and a werewolf-which was quite thrilling-Moonglow had quickly fallen in love with him. Unfortunately, Markus had discarded her as soon as his health returned. It had been a shattering experience. Perhaps, after such an emotional disaster, it would be best not to have a boyfriend for a while. Or perhaps it would be best to have a nice stable boyfriend like Daniel who wouldn't do anything crazy. Moonglow wasn't sure. However, the bargain with Malveria had ended the possibility, so there was no point even thinking about it.

The days were still short, and darkness had fallen by the time Moonglow climbed out of the tube station at Kennington. She shivered as she walked home through the backstreets of terraced houses. When she entered the living room, she put her bag down with a weary sigh and felt automatically for the light switch. As the light went on, she froze in shock. Kalix was lying on the floor, unconscious. This wasn't a total surprise. Kalix had done it before, usually as result of too much laudanum. But something worse had obviously happened, because there was an ugly wound on her hand, and blood was congealing around it on the carpet.

CHAPTER 30.

The werewolves of the Great Council of the MacRinnalch clan sat in the long stone chamber at the heart of Castle MacRinnalch that had hosted their meetings for centuries. A huge log fire burned at one end of the chamber. Torches flickered on the walls, and the stonework was draped with banners in the dark green MacRinnalch tartan, some of them very ancient. They sat around a huge, circular oaken table, the heavy varnish of which could not disguise the damage caused by werewolf claws at past meetings. Over the centuries, there had been many an angry scene in the chamber and many powerful fists banged on the table in anger. Only a few months had passed since the ill-tempered encounter when Sarapen had left the chamber in a fury after failing to secure enough votes to make him Thane.

Since then, meetings had been more peaceful. The bad feelings had begun to dissipate. Though the three barons had all come out against Markus as Thane, Verasa had welcomed them back at the end of the affair. The Mistress of the Werewolves had many years experience in soothing angry werewolf barons. While she regretted the loss of life the feud had caused, she didn't really resent their rebellion. A little dissension in the ranks of the clan and its allies wasn't such a terrible thing, on occasion. It helped to clear the air. Now Barons MacPhee and MacGregor had almost returned to their normal state of conviviality. Only Baron MacAllister still displayed any hostility, and he was very young. He'd soon learn to reconcile himself to the realities of life.

There were twelve werewolves in the great chamber, five short of the council's full compliment. Butix and Delix were not expected to attend. Though Dominil had miraculously succeeded in dragging them to a meeting some months ago, they had no intention of returning. Kalix could not attend, still being outlawed. Marwanis was still furious about Sarapen's death and hadn't been to a meeting since the feud. The other missing council member was Decembrius, for whom there was no excuse.

The meeting began peacefully. There seemed to be no business of great importance to discuss, which made Thrix even more annoyed than usual to be there. As Baron MacPhee related a dull account of some drainage problems he'd been having on his estate, her thoughts turned to her business and to the problem of getting shops to stock her clothes. The public couldn't buy her clothes if shops didn't stock them, and Thrix had had very little success so far in persuading stores that they should.

"The chief buyers for these stores are idiots," thought Thrix. "They've got no taste. And you can't get through to them anyway."

Persuading the people who ordered the stock for the main retailers was extremely difficult. Only recently, Thrix had seemed to be on the verge of a breakthrough. Kirsten Merkel, chief buyer for Eldridges, one of the capital's most important outlets, had expressed an interest. If they decided to start stocking Thrix's clothes, it would be an enormous step forward. Unfortunately, Merkel had gone quiet of late and wasn't returning Thrix's calls.

"If only that damned journalist had written the piece she said she was going to write," thought Thrix, bitterly, and broadened her anger at clothes buyers to include fashion journalists as well. She stifled a sigh and waited for the meeting to end. She swept back the golden hair that hung in long tresses from her werewolf head and shoulders and was surprised to find her mother asking her a question. Thrix looked at her mother quite blankly. "Pardon?"

Verasa clamped her jaws together, the werewolf equivalent of pursing her lips. "I was asking you what you felt about Dominil's comments."

"What comments?"

Thrix felt the eyes of the council boring into her.

"Eh..."

"Do you feel an increased danger?" prompted the Mistress of the Werewolves.

Thrix still had no idea what they were talking about.