“Dominil?”
“Yes. You were expecting me, I believe.”
“Was I?”
“I understand the Mistress of the Werewolves informed you - “
Beauty fell backwards, landing heavily on the floor. Dominil stepped inside. The house stank of whisky. The twins had been indulging heavily in the MacRinnalch malt sent by Verasa. Dominil closed the door, stepped over Beauty and walked into the front room where she found Delicious lying unconscious on the floor with a young man lying beside her, also unconscious. There were empty bottles of whisky everywhere, and the floor was so covered with every sort of junk that it was hard to find a place to put her feet. Dominil stared without expression at the scene. Obviously, reports of the twins’ behaviour were not exaggerated. Dominil bent down to check on Delicious, and turned her on her side, in case she vomited while asleep. She returned to the hall, did the same for Beauty, then opened a window to let some air into the fetid rooms.
Dominil located the kitchen, intending to make coffee. The mess she found was beyond description. It looked as if no one had ever cleaned any plate, table, or kitchen surface. No one had ever mopped the floor no matter what was spilled on it and no one had taken out the rubbish. Even filling the kettle was a daunting task. There was so much debris in the sink that it took some time to clear enough space for the kettle to fit under the tap.
Dominil took this all in. She saw already that the twins’ behaviour would have to be modified if she was to help them. As she arrived back in the living room carrying a tray of coffee, the young man stirred, and opened his eyes.
“Do you live here?” enquired the werewolf.
“No,” he mumbled, and reached toward a quarter-full bottle of whisky that lay close by. Dominil intercepted his hand and hauled him to his feet.
“Then it’s time to go,” she said, and propelled him towards the front door. He protested, but though he was some inches taller than Dominil his strength was as nothing compared to hers. She placed him on the front step, closed the door, then picked up Beauty from the hallway and carried her into the main room. She swept some clutter from the couch and sat both the twins down.
“Wake up,” said Dominil. “We have things to do.”
77
“Can’t you cancel for me?” said Thrix, almost plaintively.
“Absolutely not,” said Ann, and sounded stern.
“New York might phone back, it’s still business hours there.”
“I can take a message.”
“You will not take a message,” insisted Thrix. “Put the call through to me at the restaurant.”
Ann agreed, though unwillingly. She felt that Thrix’s date wouldn’t want their dinner to be spoiled by a business phone call. The Enchantress was adamant.
“I have to speak to them soon. I really shouldn’t be going out to dinner.”
“Stop looking for excuses,” said Ann. “You’re going on this date and that’s final.”
“Since when was it part of your job description to bully me into going out on dates?”
“Since you started moping round the office and complaining about not having a man,” answered Ann.
“I never moped. The occasional comment, maybe.”
Thrix was still searching for reasons not to go, but apart from saying that she wasn’t really in the mood, she could find no further objections.
“Once you get to the restaurant, you’ll be in the mood. It’s almost a year since you had a date. Now go out and have a good time.”
Ann was not certain why her employer, so successful in other fields, had such difficulties in dating. Someone as beautiful, intelligent and successful as Thrix shouldn’t have so much trouble finding a suitable man. Unfortunately, after a string of failed romances Thrix now seemed to have lost all confidence.
“The last man I had dinner with turned out to be a divorce casualty. All he wanted to talk about was his ex-wife. After an hour I felt like calling her and congratulating her on getting rid of him.”
Ann brushed this aside.
“Donald Carver is very eligible and he’s never been married. And he’s attractive and he works in films so you’ll have something interesting to talk about.”
“What if I don’t want to talk about films? And why did he ask me out anyway? Is he on the rebound from some doomed relationship? Are you sure about this outfit?”
“As sure as I was the other ten times you asked me. And he isn’t on the rebound from a relationship, he hasn’t had a girlfriend for a while.”
“So what’s the matter with him?” asked Thrix. “Is he really dull?”
“Your taxi is waiting,” said Ann, and ushered the Enchantress out of the office. “Have a good time. “
Thrix took the lift to the ground floor and stepped unwillingly into her taxi. Donald Carver was indeed a personable man, and reasonably attractive. Unfortunately Thrix’s run of bad luck in romance had left her pessimistic. She was expecting something to go wrong. She wondered how old he was. Around thirty, she thought. Which was about what Thrix was in human terms, although she was actually almost eighty years old. She wondered what her date would say if he knew he was about to have dinner with an eighty year old werewolf.
The clan frowned on werewolves dating humans, fearing that their true nature might be discovered. Thrix disregarded this. No one could tell that the blonde-haired fashion designer was a werewolf, not even an experienced hunter. The Enchantress was too well masked by her own sorcery ever to be discovered. Except by Malveria, of course. She had known right away. It was very difficult to hide anything from the Fire Queen by sorcery. In her own dimension she was virtually invulnerable to its effects, and even in this world, only the most powerful spells could work against her.
Malveria had walked up to Thrix at an after-show party and said in a loud voice, “I’ve never met a werewolf fashion designer before.” Thrix had been alarmed, thinking at first this must be a hunter, till her senses told her otherwise. She leaned over to whisper in Malveria’s ear. “And I’ve never met a Hiyasta at a fashion show before. But I’m prepared to be discreet about it if you’ll stop yelling out in public that I’m a werewolf.”
“Is it a secret?”
“Yes.”
“Then it will be our secret,” said Malveria, smiling sweetly. “Of course we Hiyastas are never in the best of friendship with werewolves, but who could not like a werewolf who designed such a beautiful collection of frocks?”
They had hit it off right away, becoming friends on the spot. Their mutual love for fashion seemed to make their historical antagonism quite irrelevant. Because, as the Fire Queen said, when you considered how important one’s outfits were, what did it really matter if, nine hundred years ago, Murdo MacRinnalch had grossly insulted her grandmother Queen Malgravane? And Thrix agreed, saying that if Queen Malgravane had quite unnecessarily taken offence at a mere slip of the tongue by her great-grandfather Murdo, it really wasn’t something to be troubling oneself over these days. Soon afterwards Malveria adopted the Enchantress as her fashion advisor, designer and supplier, an association which had proved beneficial to them both.
Thrix fell to thinking about her designs for Malveria being stolen. She was still preoccupied when she arrived at the restaurant and looked blankly at the man who strode up to her.
“Yes?”
“I’m your date.”
“Of course,” said Thrix, and smiled, though she was now feeling distracted by her problems. As she had arrived slightly late, they sat down immediately at their table. The waiter brought them their menus.
“I think I’ll - ” began Donald, when Thrix’s phone rang.
“Sorry,” said Thrix. “Important business call, it won’t take long.”
It wasn’t her business call. It was her mother.
“Thrix,” began Verasa. “Have you checked on Kalix yet? I believe that Sarapen may - ”
“Mother, I can’t talk about this just now.”
“Why not?”
<
br /> “I’m in a restaurant.”
“Are you so hungry you cannot delay eating for a moment?”
“I’m not on my own.”
“Ah,” said the Mistress of the Werewolves. “Are you with Ann?”
“No.”
“You mean you’re on a date? With a human?”
“Yes.”
“My dear daughter, is that wise? I know you haven’t been able to attract a suitable werewolf but consider the difficulties. Humans are very short lived you know, and rarely react well to learning that they’re associating with a werewolf.”
“Mother, this is really not the time - ”
“I’m just trying to be helpful. If you’d said you were trying to meet someone I would have introduced you to that nice Andrew MacRinnalch who was at the castle for the funeral. He’s qualified as a lawyer now, you know.”
Thrix groaned inside. Andrew MacRinnalch, a distant cousin, was possibly the most boring werewolf in the clan.
“With his own practice in Edinburgh,” continued Verasa.
“I really have to go,” said Thrix, sharply. “I’ll call you later about Kalix. Bye.”
Thrix put her phone away and apologised to her partner at the table.
“My mother. Always picks the wrong time to call.”
Donald took this all calmly, naturally. He’d been wanting to ask Thrix out for some time and having finally worked up his nerve, after some discreet encouragement from Ann, he wasn’t going to spoil things by objecting to a phone call. They studied their menus while making some small talk about the business they’d been involved in that day.
“I have some fabric coming from Korea - ”
Thrix broke off as her phone rang. It had to be New York.
“Hello?”
“Thrix. It’s Markus. I’m coming to London and there’s a lot we should discuss. Mother wants you to - ”
“I’m busy,” said Thrix. “I’m at dinner.”
“Business?”
“No.”
“You mean you’re on a date?” Markus sounded amused. “Then I should certainly not detain you, sister. After all, it’s not often you go out on a date.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Thrix, pointedly, and hung up the phone.
“My brother,” she said, apologetically to Donald. “Shall we order?”
It was the night after the full moon. All of the MacRinnalchs were in werewolf form, except Thrix. She remained as human, by her own choice. She could prevent the change by sorcery. It took some effort, but it might be worth it if the date went well.
78
Thrix was not the only member of family trying to combine their personal life with the demands of the clan. Markus was on the phone to Talixia, telling her that he would be back in London shortly. Dominil was sobering up the twins and attempting to make them understand that she was here to help. Sarapen was consulting his advisors, rebuilding his walls and gathering his troops. At the castle Lucia was saying goodbye to some of the werewolves who had travelled over the oceans to be at the funeral. She assured them that the matter of the Thaneship would be sorted out as quickly as possible. Lucia was a very charming werewolf, and quite reassuring.
Tupan sat in his chambers and reflected that, all things considered, the meetings of the Great Council had gone rather well. If the weakling Markus was ever installed as Thane, the clan would surely find him an unsatisfactory leader, and look for another.
Kalix, in werewolf form, was sitting on the couch at Daniel and Moonglow’s with the TV guide in her lap, trying to decipher the columns of writing, most of which were as illegible to her as Moonglow’s Sumerian cuneiform. She wondered if Daniel might be misleading her about the frequency of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Kalix was used to people misleading her. She studied the word Sabrina, fixing it in her mind so she could recognise it again, then awkwardly turned the pages with her werewolf paw, searching for the name.
“Aha!” she yelled, suddenly.
So strange was it to hear a werewolf shout Aha! that Daniel and Moonglow both burst out laughing.
“What’s funny?” said Kalix, self-consciously.
“Nothing,” said Moonglow. “What is it?”
Kalix pointed eagerly to a page in the TV guide which, she was quite certain, contained the word Sabrina twice in a row. On the next page, which she thought meant the next day, it appeared twice again.
“It’s on more!”
Daniel shook his head ruefully. He explained to Kalix that while it was true the channel in the listings she was studying did show more Sabrina, they didn’t have that channel.
“It’s a cable channel. We only have terrestrial.”
Kalix found this baffling.
“Get it now!” she said, enthusiastically.
“I’m afraid it costs money. Yes, there are ninety channels in that TV guide but we only have five of them.”
Kalix looked crushed.
“But they show more Sabrina,” she said. “And cartoons in the day.”
“We wouldn’t want ninety TV channels,” said Moonglow. “TV is bad, you shouldn’t waste all your time watching it.”
“I don’t understand,” said Kalix.
“Well may you not,” said Daniel. “Who wouldn’t want more TV channels? But Moonglow’s sort of anti-TV. So anti-TV in fact that when her mother offered to pay for a cable connection as a birthday present, she refused.”
Kalix stared at Moonglow.
“Is that true?”
Moonglow admitted it was, repeating that it was not good to watch too much television. Kalix became agitated. She started pacing round the room. Then she sat down next to Moonglow and looked appealing,
“Can we get cable TV?”
Moonglow shook her head.
“Who needs ninety channels? Believe me Kalix, it’s a waste of time.”
Kalix found this all very strange, and when Moonglow turned down her repeated requests she began to sulk. She rose to her feet and left the room noisily.
“Now you’ve made her angry,” said Daniel.
“Not really angry. She’s just sulking. If she’s joining the household, she has to learn to get along with us,” pointed out Moonglow.
“I’m not certain that this werewolf will ever be really communal,” said Daniel.
“Of course she will. Look how much progress she’s made already.”
It was true. Kalix had started to act more like a young flatmate rather than a crazed werewolf. She seemed to be enjoying their company. She’d eaten a lot and listened to music with them. She’d even found a new record she liked, I Want Your Love by Transvision Vamp which she’d played approximately thirty times in a row till Daniel managed to divert her attention by finding a Runaways single he hadn’t played yet.
Moonglow had tried to ask Kalix details of her life as a werewolf but Kalix was very unforthcoming. In response to Moonglow’s question about what state her mind was in after she transformed into a werewolf, Kalix had merely shrugged her shoulders.
“You’d think a person would have more to say about being a werewolf,” said Moonglow to Daniel. “You know, communing with nature and stuff like that.”
“Maybe that’s only in books,” replied Daniel. “Perhaps if you’ve always been a werewolf it’s just part of the daily grind.”
“I wonder if Kalix will ever change into her full wolf shape?” Moonglow wondered. “I’d love to see her as a wolf.”
Daniel cautioned against asking. “If she thinks we’re trying to treat her like a puppy she’ll be outraged and leave.”
“You’re right.”
The phone rang. It was Jay, Moonglow’s boyfriend, calling to arrange their next date. Daniel immediately started sulking, and went to join Kalix in the kitchen.
79
The Enchantress made it as far as nibbling an entree before her phone rang again. She answered it rather self-consciously. It was Malveria.
“I have progress. The cursed Princess Crab-apple - ha ha, I am making a joke
with her name, do you understand it? - the vile Princess has just received a clothes delivery from London. I learn this from the daughter of my ambassador to their court. This daughter will now attempt to see what label is on the clothes when the Princess disports her unpleasant figure at the Empress Asaratanti’s party celebrating the one thousandth anniversary of her victory over the ice dwarves from the north. I am invited to this party but will not go to because it is common knowledge that the Empress Asaratanti would not have secured any victory over the ice dwarves were it not for help from my mother, Queen Malgabar, but the ungrateful Empress will not admit this.”
Thrix was interested to hear that Malveria was making progress though she would have preferred not to have had the history lesson.
“When the ice dwarves flooded down over the northern glaciers, my mother - ”
“I can’t speak for long, I’m at dinner,” said Thrix, interrupting.
“At dinner?” The Fire Queen sounded surprised. “But you so rarely go out to dinner. Is it business?”
Thrix hesitated.
“You’re on a date!” said Malveria immediately. “How splendid! It is a great worry to me that you so rarely have relations with the opposite sex. Your lack of sexual activity is quite terrifying.”
Thrix thought that there would be precious little chance of relations with the opposite sex if she didn’t get Malveria off the phone.
“I have to go now. Please keep me informed of any developments.”
Thrix ended the call and looked apologetically at Donald Carver, who was politely waiting for Thrix to finish her entree.
“Sorry, another business call.”
“I can see you’re busy with your work,” said her companion, a little dubiously.
“Tell me more about the film you’re producing,” said Thrix, to get Donald’s mind off her phone calls and back on to the conversation. He told her about the meeting he’d just been to with his backers, and their attempts to raise the millions of pounds they needed. Funding a film was a difficult business in Britain and even an experienced producer like himself never found it easy to raise the money.