Chapter Four: Reunion Tour
Paddington had been up late. Nothing new there: he’d been up late most nights since discovering Lisa was pregnant, researching wolf pregnancies and human pregnancies and trying to guess what the combination would be like. Contacting McGregor was their best bet, but that meant alerting Adonis to Lisa’s condition, which he didn’t want to do.
Lisa had cut up some mango for breakfast, the smell of which helped lure him from bed. The taste more than compensated for the lack of sleep. The thing was delicious: sweet and fleshy and succulent. Almost energising. A brilliant way to start the day.
“Where’d this come from?” he asked. Sometimes when Lisa shipped plants off the island, her Mainland contact would deliver her a gift. Usually chocolate. Sometimes Charlie even passed it on to her.
“You remember that crappy little tree I saved from the city garden a few years back?” Lisa said.
There had been a nearly-dead tree in Lisa’s garden on their first date. It might have been one of the plants she’d brought with her when she’d moved in with him; he’d never really thought about them as individuals. They were always a collective jungle out the back door.
“Vaguely,” he said. “Mangy something, right?”
“Mangifera Vita,” she said, “but good try. Anyway, it produced its first fruit last week.”
“Here’s hoping it produces many more.” Paddington put the stone beside the two empty skins on his plate, then noticed Lisa was having porridge. “You didn’t have any?”
She smiled. “There was only one, and you need rewarding.”
“For what?”
“For staying up later than you should, and worrying about me, and keeping me calm when all I do is freak out. I really couldn’t do this without you.”
“And I could?” Paddington asked. “I was rubbish before I met you.”
“Yeah, I remember.” She kissed him. “Off you go now. Keep Archi safe, big mister policeman.”
Keep Archi safe… It still seemed bizarre that he was responsible for law and order on the island. He’d spent so long answering to his mother that he’d never felt in charge of anything.
Keeping an island of small-minded, myopic citizens from erupting into all-out mobs required an edge and Paddington’s was his mind. He followed the clues and anticipated behaviour; tried to react before the action. The result was almost peace. He hesitated to think of it as some sort of golden age because any peace was hard-earned by solving hundreds of individual problems, but times were undeniably better than they had been.
Since today was the first non-rain day in a week, Paddington walked the beat. Each street was familiar and welcome, like an old friend. Who would have thought he’d have thought that a few years ago? Oh, he was still an outsider in some ways but his effectiveness during the zombie crisis had earned him several years of goodwill and it was much harder to hate Archi when things were quiet and normal like today.
“Wahoooo!” shouted a naked streak of exuberance as it ran past.
And there went his nice normal day.
Paddington sprinted after the naked man, but it was clear he wouldn’t catch him. Wait, who could outrun him? Most of the island considered “round” a healthy body shape, whereas Paddington had always been thin and he ran a lap of the island most mornings. He did it as a wolf, true, but the physical benefits passed over to his human form.
But still the nudist was getting away from him. He was a few inches taller than Paddington, with the muscle and grace of a professional athlete. How many Archians could so much as break into a jog? A fast walk put most of them out of breath. This person was sprinting, arms wide and head up, long hair trailing behind him. Loving life. He’d run into something soon if he wasn’t careful.
“You!” Paddington shouted. “Stop!”
“Huh?” The naked man turned his head. “Oh, hey boss!”
What? “Clarkson?” Paddington shouted.
Clarkson slowed and stopped. After a few seconds, Paddington caught up and verified that, yes, it was Clarkson.
Which was flat-out impossible, because it was the middle of the day. Leander had turned lobster-red after being in the sun for a few seconds; Clarkson should have shrivelled like crispy bacon by now.
“What… How are you not dead?” Paddington asked.
“Dunno!” Clarkson panted. “I woke up and discovered I’d forgotten to close the curtains and there was sunlight everywhere but I’m fine. Does this mean I’m a daywalker now? The next evolution in vampires?”
“I hope not,” Paddington said. The Andrastes had few weaknesses: chief among them poor digestive tracts – which rarely came in useful in a fight – and ultraviolet light. “Vampire physiology is basically cat, so by that logic you should be able to go out in the day. Except that we know that the Andrastes can’t.” Paddington frowned. Was Clarkson something special?
“Time to call in McGregor?” Clarkson sounded hopeful.
“Time for pants.”
They were most of the way back to Clarkson’s house when a fat black monstrosity of a helicopter drowned out the putting of car engines and devoured all background noise.
The Team couldn’t be here! It was against the treaty. Adonis would… Actually, Paddington wasn’t sure what Adonis would do. He’d never tested the boundaries, just in case Adonis tried to destroy the world again.
“Home,” Paddington said. “Clothes. Meet me at the station.”
“No fair! I don’t work in the daytime.”
“Don’t you want to see your old friends?”
Clarkson shrugged. “You want an honest answer?”
“You wanted McGregor,” Paddington reminded him. “Congratulations, wish granted. Now go.”
Paddington ran back to the police station. The helicopter sat in the parking lot, its rotors hanging out over the road. Inside the station, Rick looked relieved as soon as he saw Paddington. Rick was a member of the werewolf pack but the least like the others, who were all… headstrong, hard to get on with, rowdy. That was somewhat necessary, since testosterone triggered the change, but Rick wanted to do right. When Paddington had become chief constable, Rick had asked if he could join the police and Paddington was only too happy to have him.
Dealing with Mainlanders who had broken both the treaty and the Embargo, though, was outside of his comfort zone. He’d made tea, which McGregor seemed more interested in studying than consuming – constantly smelling it, occasionally swirling it, and looking puzzled. He’d filled out in the last few years from gawky nerd to… well… he was almost as buff as Mitchell had been the last time Paddington had seen him.
As for Mitchell… If Paddington worked out every spare second of every day, he doubted he could have as much muscle on him as Mitchell did. He’d grown Truman-esque, but it was only noticeable when Paddington really looked. The muscle was hidden beneath his usual black fatigues and the extra weight didn’t slow his movement; he seemed more agile than ever. That muscle was entirely functional.
Good thing he was on their side.
“What are you doing here?” Paddington asked. “And where are Truman and Skylar?” Hopefully not off arresting someone; Three-God knew how he’d placate the populace if that were the case.
In the background, phones rang. Paddington left Rick to answer them and concentrated on getting the Team off Archi as quickly as possible.
“Counted your vampires lately?” Mitchell asked.
Oh no.
Paddington hadn’t seen them since dinner nearly two weeks ago but he suspected the Team had seen them more recently. “Lights have been on in the manor every night,” Paddington said. “Police reports have been answered. I haven’t had any direct contact in a fortnight.”
“We, uh, have,” McGregor said. Looked like that muscle hadn’t helped his confidence. He still had the same awkward-schoolboy look beneath the bulbous head of red-blond hair. “This morning, in a town called Estika.”
“A whole castle full of them,” Mitchell
added.
The heavy feeling that had settled in Paddington’s gut seemed to lighten as dread was confirmed. Somehow, knowing made it a little better.
But knowing that the Andrastes had broken the treaty two weeks ago and he hadn’t even noticed… that didn’t make it better.
Paddington nodded. “Did you kill them?”
Mitchell snorted. “No. Truman wanted to get you.”
“Me? Why?”
“Either because he enjoys yanking our chains or because you’re the expert.”
That was a joke. An expert would have seen this coming. Unfortunately, if there existed an expert on the Andrastes, Paddington couldn’t think of who it might be but him.
Three-God help the world.
“So what’s the plan?” he asked.
“You come with us,” Mitchell said.
“When?”
“Right now.”
Was he serious? Yes, by the look on his face. Mitchell had a good face for serious: bony, receding dark-brown hair, beady eyes, long nose.
“I can’t,” Paddington said. “I need to settle things here.”
“Settle things?” Mitchell said. “Your vampires are loose; what do you have to do that’s more important than dealing with that?”
“I’m still chief constable. Before I go running off to the Mainland, I need to make sure Archi is safe.”
“Eh, go, we’ll be fine,” Clarkson said as he entered the station. He hadn’t dressed in his police uniform, but then Paddington hadn’t explicitly told him to. He was lucky Clarkson had gone with jeans and a jacket instead of an evening suit. “Hey cap,” Clarkson added to Mitchell. Mitchell just shook his head. “Oh, that’s right, you’re just a private again now, huh?”
McGregor pointed. “Why is he out in the sun? And not dead?”
“And hello to you too,” Clarkson said as the doctor ran forward and examined his skin.
McGregor barely looked up. “Oh, yeah, hi.”
“Apparently sunlight isn’t the problem we thought it was,” Paddington said.
“That’s all we need,” Mitchell said.
“But Leand—” McGregor said.
“You can debate Clarkson’s immunity amongst yourselves,” Paddington said. “As for leaving, I’ll follow you tomorrow.”
“You want me to come back in the helicopter?” McGregor asked.
“No. I need to slip away unnoticed if I ever want to return here.”
“Afraid they’ll arrest you for breaking Embargo?” Mitchell asked.
“Who’s going to arrest me?” Paddington asked. “I’m the chief of police and my best friend is the mayor. The only higher authority is the duke, who’s not here.” Paddington swallowed. “No, I’m afraid they’ll lynch me. Being a Mainlander-marrying Mainland-lover is bad; setting foot on the Mainland is unforgiveable.”
Would Mitchell allow the delay of another day? If he were in charge of the Team, he’d have dragged Paddington to the chopper and tied him on board without so much as a goodbye. Now, though, Paddington suspected he’d endure the delay because it was Truman’s problem.
“Fine,” Mitchell said. “Tomorrow. Midday. Don’t be late.”
“Uh,” McGregor said, “can I examine Clarkson? It would give me a better idea what we’re up against.”
For some reason, everyone turned to Paddington for permission.
“Ask Clarkson, it’s his body,” Paddington said, “but anything you do should be done off Archi.”
“Why?”
“Because I expect an angry mob any minute. Your last visit preceded half of the island becoming zombies; the survivors might be a bit wary of welcoming you back.”
“Wait,” Clarkson said. “You said, ‘Off Archi’? I can go with them?”
Mitchell looked at Clarkson for a moment, silently analysing him. Paddington had done the same thing before offering Clarkson the constable’s uniform. There was something unsettling about Clarkson. It was probably just the slitted eyes and the pointed teeth – factors outside Clarkson’s control – but the unease was hard to shake. It didn’t help that Clarkson had been welcomed openly by nearly every Andraste daughter. He was certainly in bed with the vampires, but was he one of them? Or one of the Archians? One of the Team? All? None?
Paddington only trusted him because he knew Clarkson was too lazy to formulate expansive plots. It wasn’t that he couldn’t, he’d just see it all as too much work.
“A day’s delay is one thing,” Mitchell said, “but you can’t expect me to trust a vampire when we’re fighting vampires.”
“Truman might,” Paddington said.
Mitchell’s face resumed its typical, world-weary scowl. “Fine.” Somehow Mitchell made compliance seem like flipping Paddington off. Must be all those years of practice. The man could probably do surly underwater.
“So, to be clear,” Clarkson said, “I get to leave, right now, on that helicopter, and go to the Mainland, and get off Archi and not be stuck in this island? And the only downside is I have to let the bulbous one probe me?”
“Hey!” McGregor said.
Clarkson laid a hand on McGregor’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, bud. I know you’ll be gentle.”
“Not after that comment I won’t.”
“Yes,” Paddington said. “That’s about it.”
Clarkson beamed. It wasn’t a good look. Rather than showing pleasure, Clarkson’s teeth reminded everyone that he was a predator designed for the efficient murder of squishy, weak creatures like humans.
“Grab your gear,” Mitchell told Clarkson, “and be at the chopper in half an hour.”
Clarkson snapped off a salute that wasn’t nearly as sarcastic as the ones he gave Paddington and ran off back to his car.
“Can I revisit the Tree?” McGregor asked Paddington before an awkward silence had even had time to develop.
The city garden was as isolated as anywhere on the island. Less chance of angering the locals. “It’s fine by me.”
“No, I mean I… need a ride.”
“Just a minute.”
Paddington stopped beside Rick, who took the phone away from his ear. The irate shouting on the other end continued. “Call a pack meeting,” Paddington said. “Eight o’clock tonight at my house.”
“Tonight is a Gathering,” Rick said. The Church of Enanti believed strongly in the power of community, so the parishioners – including the whole werewolf pack, minus Paddington – met several times a week in each other’s homes.
“This is more important,” Paddington said. Judging by Rick’s face that wasn’t possible, so Paddington added, “Trust me?”
Rick nodded and went back to the phones; Paddington collected McGregor and they left for the Garden of Terpo. How best to raise the topic of Lisa’s pregnancy? A joke seemed coarse, and McGregor might not take it seriously… But if he came out and said it, McGregor would become so excited by the possibilities that he’d probably wet the squad car. They’d barely left the station, with Paddington still mulling it over, when McGregor said, “Long-term effects of being a werewolf. Tell me everything.”
“Tell you what?”
McGregor was leaning toward Paddington with more enthusiasm than was good for a person. “Have there been any physiological changes? Has your sense of smell improved since I last saw you? Sight?”
“Taste for raw meat? Inclination to howl?” Paddington asked. McGregor looked so ashamed that Paddington spoke again before McGregor could bury him beneath an avalanche of apologies. “No. I haven’t noticed any changes, apart from a little upper-body strength.” That seemed to dampen McGregor’s spirits, so Paddington added, “It affects your mind, though. What you notice; the way you think about things. I notice smells more.”
McGregor nodded like a bearded, ginger-haired bobbly-doll. “Makes sense. It’s psychological bleed-through. When you repeat actions or experiences, your brain streamlines those connections to make it easier next time. If you spend a long time using the wolf’s sense of smell…??
?
Did McGregor mean he was rewiring his brain? That sounded… dangerous.
“Also I married a gardener,” Paddington said. “Might not have anything to do with the wolf.” Not that he believed that.
“And what of your lady wife?” McGregor asked.
Was now the time to tell McGregor about the pregnancy? Should he tell him without asking Lisa first? “What about her?” Paddington asked.
“Has she experienced the same thing?”
Lisa was always quieter after being the wolf; Paddington had never really considered that that might be because her brain was reforging the speech connections. “I don’t know,” he said. “She’s only a wolf for a few days a month.”
“Why? How long are you a wolf each month?”
What was the right answer to that? He usually started the day with an hour-long run around the island, and sometimes he would be the wolf if it helped with a case, and anytime he was off-duty and Lisa was a wolf he would be one as well. Or if she was out sometimes he’d be the wolf for the evening, just because it was fun. And it saved on heating bills in winter. So, all things considered, a while.
“Oh, you know, not long,” Paddington said.
“And is the transition becoming easier or harder? Easier to change, harder to change back?”
“Easy as ever. The first change was sort of by accident, but after that I learned the… the knack.” It sounded weak and stupid, phrased like that. His anger had triggered his first change, but after that he’d just remembered how it had felt to be the wolf. He looked inside, to the black space within him where the wolf lived, and found the wolf there waiting. He didn’t call the wolf, he just was the wolf, as if the wolf and the man were two equal parts of him and he just chose which to be. Like flipping a switch.
Before McGregor had finished writing in his notepad, they arrived at the ten-foot-tall stone gates to the Garden of Terpo. Largely because of Lisa’s efforts, the only noticeable difference in the garden after the stampede of three thousand zombies was the Tree itself, which was now in several pieces a short distance from where it had once stood. Being removed of the ground had turned the cracks into splits and what had once been one nine-foot-tall obelisk was now four pieces of enormous rock waiting for the work crews to clear them away
“Wha… What happened?” McGregor asked.
“The council finally approved removing it earlier this month,” Paddington said. “The citizens didn’t know the decorations were an ancient prophecy we foiled; they just knew it reminded them of the zombies.”
McGregor rushed over to kneel at the pile of stone as if it were a dying friend, examining the rock and wiping dirt off and making little whimpering noises. Paddington spotted Lisa kneeling a few feet away, where the obelisk used to stand. Only a small hole remained now; the rest had been filled in.
“Hello there.” Paddington knelt down and kissed her.
“Hi.” Lisa nodded past Paddington at McGregor. “Why are they here?”
“The Andrastes have left Archi.”
She turned back to the little tree beside the hole. “Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” Lisa asked. “I mean, you’re always talking about what Archi could be if the Andrastes weren’t around, and now they’re not.”
“Lisa, they broke the treaty.”
“So? Let the soldiers deal with it.” Lisa dumped the tree into the hole. It looked like the little mango tree from their back yard, but there were no fruit on it for confirmation. “You can stay here and make the most of it. Throw some influence around. Do some good.”
All he had to do was leave the Andrastes loose on the Mainland.
“And if Adonis comes back,” Lisa continued, “arrest him for breaching Embargo. That would show him. Otherwise, it’s out of your jurisdiction.”
As much as Paddington liked that idea, he couldn’t do it. He doubted he could stop whatever the Andrastes were planning, but at least he could say he tried. Better that than wondering, later, what might have been.
“They need me. I’m as close to an expert as there is, apparently.”
Lisa stopped packing the dirt down and looked at him with something like worry or concern or fear or frustration. Her mouth started sentences, but always stopped short of the first syllable.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I just… I know this is a dream come true for you, but it scares me, Jim.”
A dream come true? “What?”
She dusted her hands off and stood. “You get to go to the Mainland but without any guilt for leaving Archi.”
That hadn’t actually occurred to him. It should have, shouldn’t it? Wasn’t this what he wanted? To leave this backward island for the wider world. See what technology was like en masse. Meet people with interests besides farming and drinking. Become a Man of the World, whatever that meant.
“So I leave Archi; so what?” he said. “I’ll come back.”
“You can’t say that!” It had been years since he’d seen her eyes so fierce. They still sent chills through him. “You think Adonis will take it easy on you? If you go, he’ll kill you.”
That was certainly a danger. A real danger.
“Maybe,” he said. “But on the off-chance that there’s something I can do to stop him, or that this is another end-of-the-world thing, then it’s worth the risk.”
“I still have nightmares about last time,” Lisa said, “zombies and monsters and everyone trying to kill us. Why do you want to run back to that? Are you mental, Jim?”
Possibly. Most people had been terrified or overwhelmed by the zombie horde; he’d been energised. Enthused. Fascinated.
That probably wasn’t a good sign.
Paddington took both of Lisa’s arms in his hands. “I don’t want to die, Lisa,” he said, “and I really don’t want to go. I don’t. Right here, with you, is where I want to spend the rest of my life. Okay?” She nodded. “We’ll talk more tonight. I’ve called a pack meeting for eight.”
There was nothing else to say, so Paddington left his wife and rejoined McGregor by the pile of rock that had once been the Tree. “Found something?”
McGregor shook his head. “I don’t know. I always assumed the Tree was as old as the garden itself, or as old as the Book, but from a closer examination of the writing – the carving, not the words themselves – it looks like they’re not that old. A few hundred years at most.”
“Is that significant?”
“It’s anomalous. Like that graffiti you used to find that was written in ancient Greek. Unusual, and probably tied in, but I don’t know how.” McGregor huffed. Like a disappointed maid discovering a particularly dirty room. “I wish you’d copied it down before you’d cleaned it off.”
“We didn’t know it was ancient messages from a deity,” Paddington said. “I assumed it was kids mucking about.”
“And you haven’t seen any since the last prophecy?”
“No.” That bothered Paddington. The graffiti had been around all his life, scrawled on the sides of churches or the garden’s walls, nagging at him because he could never find who wrote it. Then, the instant he’d had the means to understand what was written, it had stopped.
Which meant he’d still never found out who wrote it, or why, or what it had said.
“So what’s so unusual about the Tree only being a few hundred years old?” Paddington asked.
“It implies that this stone wasn’t the original Tree that was here in the garden, but we already knew that.”
Did they? “Of course we did.”
“Because this is where the Tree of Life and the Understanding Tree grew, in the garden at the dawn of humankind. The stone just marked the spot where those Trees used to be.”
“Right,” Paddington said. “Well, unless those Trees and the entire story are just metaphors for mankind’s struggle to understand and subsequently master his environment…”
McGregor shrugged. “That’s another possibility.”