Fratricide, Werewolf Wars, and the Many Lies of Andrea Paddington

  Chapter Two: The Thrill of the Chase

  Clarkson was inside the jeweller’s when he heard the car pull up. He shoved the Nepeta Dynatos leaves into his pocket, wiped his nose to make sure no bits of broken leaf were stuck to it, took a final moment of dozy pleasure from the plant’s effects, then blinked to perk his eyes up and went to the front window. By that stage, Mrs Paddington was driving away; her husband was investigating the outside of the shop. “Hey boss.”

  “Should you be in there contaminating the crime scene?” Paddington asked. Such a stickler for routine.

  “This is one of your rhetorical questions, isn’t it?” Clarkson asked. “I’m not in here for funsies, though. I’m checking what was taken.”

  Paddington stopped at the broken front window. “And?”

  “Only what was in the main window, even though the good stuff is further in.”

  “He ignored the bigger payload. Why?”

  Clarkson shrugged. “Not because I interrupted him.”

  Paddington nodded. “Right then,” he said, and placed his jacket on the hood of the police car.

  “Really boss? Right out in the open?”

  Paddington had removed his shirt. “What? It’s too dark for anyone to see anything.”

  “Vampire,” Clarkson said, pointing at himself. “Impeccable night vision. And you’re—” He broke off and as Paddington dropped his trousers, and only looked back when heavy sniffing indicated his boss was now in full beast mode. The big dark-grey wolf approached the shattered window and smelled around, then nodded further down the road and ran off. Clarkson tossed Paddington’s clothes in the car and drove after him.

  It was half an hour before the wolf stopped running. Clarkson parked the squad car and a naked man popped up beside the passenger’s door and reached in for his clothes. “Cold enough?” Clarkson asked.

  “A bit nippy,” Paddington said.

  “Whose house is this?” Clarkson asked.

  “Max Redclaw.”

  “Priors?”

  “Clean slate. A month shy of adult, as well, so he’ll be tried as a juvenile.”

  “Convenient.”

  “Very. I’ll take the front, you cover the back.”

  Clarkson fired off a mock-salute and leapt onto the roof of the house as Paddington made his way to the front door. Max’s house backed onto a small lane, so Clarkson perched right above the door in case Max made a run for it.

  Paddington dinged the doorbell.

  Max made a run for it. Archians always ran. Clarkson liked that about them. There wasn’t a lot he liked about Archi, but he liked that the criminals always ran. Clarkson would complain more about being trapped on such a crap, backwards island, but it was hard to despise a place that housed seven hot female vampires with low low standards and criminals who were such good fun to chase.

  Clarkson leapt from the roof onto the alley’s rock wall, but attacking now would be too soon, so he jumped into a nearby tree and stopped. Max heard the noise and looked up, but didn’t stop running.

  Clarkson sprang to the ground, bounded onto the roof of a house and ran along its end, then leapt into and out of another tree. Again Max turned to the noise, but this time stopped. Clarkson pictured rumours running through his head: fearful images of things that went bump in the night.

  The time was right. Clarkson dropped to the ground. For a moment the kid just watched him. As Clarkson sauntered toward him, a wide array of stupid expressions played themselves out on Max’s face.

  Then he ran for his life.

  Clarkson felt the chilly November air rush past him as he closed the distance, moving with easy glace, picking every twisting cobblestone in the moonlight as he sprang lightly on Max’s back.

  “Oh, Idryo!” he shouted as Clarkson bore him to the ground and pinned his neck with one hand. Clarkson’s pointed teeth rested an inch from it, ready to bite into his spinal cord or crush his trachea or, if Clarkson was feeling predictable, go for the jugular.

  “You know,” Clarkson said, as he hauled Max to his feet, “I don’t know why people try this crap at night. Hasn’t word gotten around by now?”

  Honestly, what more could Clarkson do? It wasn’t like he was keeping himself a secret here; the problem was none of the locals knew what a vampire was. Clarkson could march past the council chambers – at night, obviously – in an evening suit shouting “I vant to suck your blood!” and no one would run at him with a stake or garlic.

  Stupid duke and his stupid media blackout. How was Clarkson supposed to feel like a proper vampire if no one knew to fear and revere him?

  Max stopped flinching long enough to actually look at Clarkson, then let out a relieved breath. “Oh, thank the Three-God, it’s only you.”

  Only him? This was exactly what Clarkson was talking about. No one respected the proper horror of vampirism when it was dressed in a police constable’s uniform. How was he supposed to be dark and brooding when Paddington made him shine his buttons before every shift?

  “Who else would it be?” Clarkson asked. “You worried it would be Paddington?” Meek little Paddington, with his fine suit and his sticky-uppy hair?

  Max’s eyes bulged at the name.

  “You’re actually more scared of him than me? Why?”

  “Because they… say things about him…”

  Clarkson released Max. “What things?”

  “That there was a whole zombie army, and he turned them away with a word. Then when everyone turned up, the Tree in the city garden was cracked from top to bottom and there was hundreds of dead zombies – like, ripped to pieces and stuff – and he was the only one there, and he was naked. Just him… alone, unarmed. He’d stopped them all. Just him.”

  Urgh. That was just so typical. Clarkson did more of the work than Paddington had, but where were his thanks? Paddington had only cut off Thomas Brown’s head; Clarkson had doused Harold in propane and set him on fire. And he’d done it with a witty one-liner. Where was Paddington’s witty one-liner?

  Max wasn’t finished. “And they say that he convinced the zombies to go back south and stay there. And he could walk safely among the zombies and bring out all the dead bodies.”

  Damn. That part was true. Only because zombies didn’t want werewolf brains, though; it was no reason to make a myth of the man. Hell, Clarkson had gone into the zombie zone just as easily and often because he was a vampire. Where was his terrified public?

  Piece of crap island.