Chapter Twenty-Four: Sacrifice
Adonis had been right: these deaths weren’t necessary. The only necessary death was Beck’s. All of the friends Paddington had watched die tonight were on his head. On Adonis’s, too, but mostly on his. He shouldn’t be putting his friends in danger, shouldn’t watch them die one by one. It shouldn’t be them fighting. If he truly believed the Andrastes should be stopped, he should be the one doing it.
Not that it mattered much. Paddington could hardly communicate his realisation to Melanthios; the vampire was too focussed on putting a halberd into him for conversation.
To his left, a gush of blood announced another wolf death. When Melanthios glanced over to see whether the blood was his sister’s or an enemy’s, Paddington slid his sword up the shaft of the halberd into the vampire’s fingers.
With a hissed intake of breath, Melanthios dropped the halberd. Paddington kept the sabre coming, hoping to catch him in the chest, but the youngest Andraste was too quick for that. He lacked his brother’s strength or refined fighting style, but he was bouncy and hard to hit. Now he jumped back a step, then over Will and Curt and Phaedra, and up onto the castle’s curtain wall.
“Dom! Look out!” Paddington shouted.
But his wife’s ex-boyfriend, the werewolf who had unintentionally turned her, was entirely focussed on Clytemnestra. Melanthios lifted the dark wolf and, with a grunt of pain, threw him off the edge of the castle.
“Retreat!” Paddington called. It was still two wolves plus him against the three vampires but he wasn’t taking chances with the remains of a pack. Either they’d come back at full strength with the whole Team or he’d come back alone.
The wolves barely looked up from their cornered – but still armed and dangerous – vampire before they obeyed. In seconds they were disappearing through the castle’s gatehouse. Paddington ran after them as fast as he could, but he wouldn’t catch them unless they wanted him to.
It was just after he passed through the destroyed gate that Paddington felt a new pair of eyes on him. He turned and saw a rifle only a few feet away, a vulture-faced soldier behind it.
“I assume from all the running that you didn’t win,” Mitchell said.
“I’ll tell you on the way.”
“What about the others?”
Paddington didn’t trust his voice, so he shook his head and Mitchell understood that there were no others. He waited for the sanctimonious gloating about how it’s not so much fun when it’s all your men dying, but Mitchell just nodded for Paddington to go then turned his attention back to the gate.
Halfway across the bridge, Paddington sheathed the Bretherton Sabre and glanced back. Mitchell was following him, silent, eyes on the castle. They kept sprinting when they reached the street; the Andrastes wouldn’t kill Paddington, but they might take a shot at Mitchell. Knowing Mitchell, that would probably only annoy him, but rather than give them the chance they ran to the building that had housed the nest.
“They threw Dom over the side,” Paddington said. “He might have survived. Everyone else is dead.”
“I saw something sliding down the motte a minute before you arrived,” Mitchell said. “I think it slunk off townwards when it reached the bottom.”
About time he had some luck. If Dom remembered their briefing, he’d head to the old safehouse.
Paddington saw his long tan coat hanging on a peg in the hallway, put it on, and buttoned it up. That might stop people noticing the sword at his hip and the bloody hole in his shoulder that, now that he remembered it, was starting to throb. He’d just have to hope no one noticed the cut on his palms that Charlie’s trawler had given him a lifetime ago. Or this morning. Whenever.
They ran back out onto the street and headed south-west, toward the abandoned suburbs and their old base. Barely was he out of the door, though, when Paddington noticed a pile of bodies, easily overlooked as they were all in black. There was about a dozen men and women: faux vampire mainly, but with a few people who looked like they’d been drawn from their homes and had thrown on whatever was nearest the bed.
“Let’s go,” Paddington said.
They hadn’t gone far when Paddington heard the first sounds in the otherwise quiet night: voices. Quite a lot of them. Paddington slowed to a walk as they rounded the corner and saw the town hall, in front of which were thirty people.
And one wolf.
They’d tied his legs together and clamped a dog’s muzzle on his face and were carrying him through the town on a pole like a pig on a spit.
And they’d brought him to the centre of the town, to the place of governance even though it was abandoned at night. Was that to give their mob the feeling of authority? That what happened here was justice?
“It could be dangerous!” someone shouted.
“Uugh, it looked at me!”
One woman of Archian proportions in the centre was giving orders, but Paddington doubted there was a clear plan. Most were scared, casting glances at the docile and thoroughly-subdued wolf. Archians would have been loud, boisterous, pleased at the hunt and the prospect of a kill. Displaying their superiority over nature. The Estikans were so divorced from nature they’d reverted to ignorant fear as their default position.
“Stay here,” Paddington told Mitchell.
“I shot a grenade at them in front of the castle,” Mitchell said. “You’re on your own.” He disappeared around the corner. Hopefully he’d send help back, but Paddington didn’t trust hope today.
“Right,” the woman said, “let’s get this animal around the back; tie it to the Tree.”
Damn. He’d missed his opportunity to stop them here. As the crowd moved around the town hall, Paddington joined with others who were approaching from side streets, drawn by the noise.
Surely someone would recognise that he didn’t belong in this community, that he wasn’t one of them, that they’d never seen him before. But they didn’t. They looked quizzically at his long coat and his no-doubt haggard expression and bleary eyes, but they didn’t question him or shout that they had an intruder. Score one for hope.
With luck, those wearing only strips of leather on this post-rain winter night would retire to their homes for warmth. That would leave a higher concentration of sensible people who spent their nights at home instead of deafening themselves in basements in their underwear.
Tying Dom to the Tree involved someone slipping a noose around his neck as he lay upside-down on the spit, then looping the rope over a branch and holding it tight as they put him on the ground. A few people jumped or squeaked or hid behind others as the wolf touched down, even though two large men held the other end of the rope tight from several feet away, able to yank Dom off the ground by his neck and hang him to death should he try to move.
Instead, Dom managed to sit up, legs still bound, and slump his back against the Tree. Quite a human thing to do, but none of the mob noticed. With the beast subdued, the crowd developed a listless energy, like children lined up outside a classroom waiting for someone to tell them what to do.
Would Adonis be that authority figure? Would he arrive by car and demand death to all wolves? He hadn’t done so already, as far as Paddington could tell. Did that mean he wanted his revenge personal? Served by his kin rather than anonymous outsiders?
“What now?” someone asked.
“Kill it,” said the woman in charge. Apparently her sensibility didn’t extend past her dress sense.
This was, thankfully, not met with shouts of “Huzzah”. The crowd wasn’t sure about this, but a least someone was making decisions – someone who wasn’t them and someone who clearly held some power or sway – and they were willing to go along with it provided they didn’t have to swing the executioner’s axe personally.
“What about animal control?” Paddington said, hoping his voice would be lost in the crowd.
It wasn’t. Those around him turned to him, surprised that someone would speak up. Deprived of anonymity, Paddington stood tall in th
e middle of the group leaning away from him. “Isn’t this their department?”
“Who’s that?” asked the woman at the front.
“James Paddington.” He stepped forward, putting the crowd to his back. He didn’t want to be in the middle of it when they realised no one knew any Paddingtons; that he wasn’t one of them; that he was an Outsider. It was easier to run if he had a clear direction to go. Not that he could outrun a mob right now; the chill had penetrated his chest and arm. He’d probably lose consciousness from blood loss before he even made it to the stone walls that bordered three sides of the garden.
Staying, then. For good or ill.
And still no flickers of suspicion in the crowd. No wayward glances; questions to those beside him asking whether they knew him; no questioning at all. Did no one on the Mainland know his neighbours?
Because that would come in quite handy right about now.
“And you are?” he asked.
“Yvette. Sergeant Yvette Henderson.”
Ah. Police. That explained the aura of power and control. Unfortunately, it also meant that she was more likely to recognise that he wasn’t from Estika. Good cops knew their locals.
Dom tried to catch his eyes. Paddington glanced over but didn’t show pity or make any kind of reassuring gesture. That would betray the character he was playing of concerned but uninvolved citizen. Any connection to the wolf would put him under suspicion.
“It’s dangerous,” Yvette said, peering at him. The light on the town hall’s rear face cast flat white light across the small garden, but Paddington had his back to it. That, combined with the mob’s shadows, should make it hard for her to clearly see him.
“So keep it tied up while you call animal control,” Paddington said.
“It’s a wild animal. Loose on the streets of our town. Who knows if there are others?”
“At a guess? Animal control.” Dammit. Stupid mouth; this wasn’t the time to be flippant. He needed the crowd on his side.
As Yvette’s tolerance of him waned, the crowd grew restless, uncomfortable with someone standing up to a figure of authority. They wanted this whole ordeal over so they could forget it and Paddington was drawing it out.
“We should be out there searching for others,” Yvette said, “not wasting our time guarding this dangerous animal when the animal control that you so dearly love would only put it down anyway.”
“I don’t know,” Paddington said. “Besides, it doesn’t look dangerous to me.” Paddington stepped toward Dom, toward the matted black fur and spindly legs, right hand extended. When Dom sniffed it and didn’t attack him, the crowd would be more on his side. If Dom could manage to wag his tail, Paddington might even be able to sell him as a stray mutt.
He didn’t get close enough for a sniff. The big man holding Dom’s noose gave it a quick pull to ensure he couldn’t attack and Yvette swung Paddington around by his left arm. It took most of his willpower not to scream as the jolt coursed through his stab wound. Especially when he heard the hole tear open again and felt new blood on his shirt. Hopefully it wouldn’t soak through his outer coat.
“Are you insane?” Yvette yelled. “Don’t go near it! It’s probably diseased.”
It was hard to argue that point. Something about Dom always looked dirty. It was the patches where his fur was thin, the gaunt look in his legs, the sickly expression. He’d never convince them that Dom wasn’t a health hazard.
“Who knows what horrible things it picked up in the wild?” Yvette asked.
“How can we feel safe with things like that running loose?” shouted a voice in the crowd.
“It’s a living thing,” Paddington said. “And it deserves more respect than an execution. Give it the benefit of the doubt. Call the professionals.”
“Like those men Constable Beck called?” she asked. “The ones who attacked the count’s castle? They sure looked professional.”
Dammit. In a few short sentences, she’d turned this from a logical debate about the life of one animal into a larger debate about autonomy. By siding with the wolf, Paddington would side with Beck and label himself a traitor. There was no actual connection, but the crowd wouldn’t spot that.
“I didn’t see them,” Paddington said. “All I saw was this dog that looks like it needs proper care—”
Yvette pulled her pistol out of a holster beneath her jacket and aimed it at Dom. “Whose side are you on, friend?” she asked Paddington.
“It hasn’t hurt anyone!”
“Then why’s it covered with blood?”
Shit. In the poor light, Paddington hadn’t noticed that Dom’s black fur was matted with blood and mud. It was all around his mouth was well.
“We are losing our town,” Yvette said to the crowd. “Those professionals are trying to kill the count; people have been attacked; it’s not safe on the streets; and now we find a vicious beast covered in blood. So if someone comes to the station tomorrow saying they can’t find their dog, I’ll pay them compensation out of my own pocket, but I am not leaving our town to chaos and turmoil. So step aside, Mister Paddington.”
It was there, in the inflection of his name: she knew he didn’t belong. She was willing to let him walk away, but one more interruption and she’d ask him who he was. She’d work out he was lying. The crowd was already restless, especially the latecomers at the back who had been promised an execution not a debate. Shouts came to put it out of its misery already.
Paddington locked eyes with Dom: legs shaking, body rocking back and forth like a house on stilts in a hurricane. If Dom’s limbs were free and human, his arms would be wrapped around his knees. Only his eyes were calm and still. They met Paddington’s and flicked once to the back of the crowd.
Paddington wiped his mouth, trying to eliminate the feeling that there was a magic word that would save Dom. There wasn’t one; there was the will of the crowd and by now most of the fifty-strong crowd had come for blood. It would make them feel good, feel confident and strong and safe in their homes. They had found an intruder and they had killed it. They were the masters now. They didn’t need to be scared anymore.
Yvette looked unrepentant as Paddington shook his head and made his way toward the mob. At the back, he spotted a familiar face he had hoped not to see: Lisa. He walked straight to her, ignoring the stares of contempt directed at him.
Lisa raised her eyebrows in Dom’s direction. “Try something else!”
“There is nothing else,” he said.
Lisa stepped around him to have a better view. Maybe she could think of something he hadn’t. Yvette was checking her pistol, making sure it was all in working order. At the base of the Tree, Dom sat as proudly as he could manage on quivering legs.
“Why doesn’t he change back?” Lisa whispered.
“Because then they’d kill him and come after me and anyone else they don’t recognise. Driven by fear and panic, they’d tear the town apart by sunrise and probably kill a dozen innocent people they didn’t trust.”
Lisa spun back to him. “So run at him. Where’s your sword? Cut him loose or something!”
Another jolt of pain shot through him just thinking about running. He was so tired, and everything hurt. He just wanted to sleep. “I can’t.”
Lisa’s mouth opened and closed, ice-blue eyes roamed his face. “How can you just let him die?”
Paddington looked past her, past the crowd, to Dom. Scared Dom, trying to be brave as someone pointed a loaded gun at his head. Two men pulled the other end of the rope and lifted his forelegs off the ground.
“Because there’s no other way,” he said.
“Bullshit! You could do—”
“It’s too late,” he said, looking back at her. Her eyes were red and puffy from tears. “I can’t save him. But Dom is willing to die so they don’t come after us and I won’t let him die for nothing.”
“But you will let him die?” Lisa asked. “You’re that kind of man?”
Gods, what a question.
“Yes,” he said.
The night shook with the gun’s crack. The crowd startled and gasped and turned away. Paddington turned toward the red splatter on the Tree and the wolf carcass lying at its base and uttered a silent prayer that the Three-God take care of his soul.
Because They sure hadn’t cared for his life.