It was ridiculous to me now, but that didn’t mean my son wouldn’t be slaughtered. Until he drinks the blood of gammou-jhi. The phrase left me furious and exhausted. Furious because it was hokey and arbitrary and dumb, exhausted because it was no more hokey and arbitrary and dumb than turning into a nine-foot monster every full moon and ripping someone to pieces and eating them. Who was I to dismiss it? Two years ago I would’ve dismissed the reality I was living right now.

In spite of which I dismissed it. I couldn’t help it. When I asked myself if I believed that a several-thousand-years-old vampire had passed-on predictions for his regular reappearance through the coming millennia, and that those predictions had been accurate and successfully preserved, the answer was No, I did not. When I asked myself if Jacqueline and her Disciples believed it, the answer was Yes, they did. And as Walker had pointed out, as far as my son’s life was concerned, that was all that mattered.

Walker.

I knew two things. One was that sleeping with him would be a profoundly bad idea. The other was that I was going to sleep with him.

‘I’m going to take a bath,’ I said to Cloquet. ‘You should get some rest.’

He remained where he was for a moment, staring down into the whiskey’s flamy gold. Then he lifted the glass, drank what was left, put it on the bar and crossed to the door. Stopped. Didn’t turn.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t my decision to make.’

I didn’t reply immediately. My human knew how little it would cost to give him a word of comfort. Wulf remained affronted that its familiar had taken the law into its own hands. For a few moments the Curse’s grammar insisted a dose of suffering here would be salutary. I balanced. Tiredness had given a flicker to my peripheral vision. Then I remembered Jake telling me a story about Harley storming out of a lover’s boudoir once in such a rage he didn’t realise until he was in the street he’d put his shoes on wrongly, left shoe on right foot and vice-versa. Jake had laughed, with genuine warm delight. Then, when he’d subsided, he’d said My God, I wish I’d been kinder to Harley.

‘It was wrong of you,’ I said to Cloquet, quietly. ‘But it was wrong for the right reasons. Now for God’s sake go and get some sleep.’

21

The next afternoon I phoned Walker with what I thought was bad news: Charlie Proctor, Jake’s (and subsequently my) man at Aegis, was gone. When I’d called the number a woman with a very slight Irish accent told me Mr Proctor was no longer with the company. No, there was no new number. No, she couldn’t pass on a message. No, there was no further information she could give me. She could put me through to Mr Hurst, Mr Proctor’s replacement – but I knew by then these were all the wrong noises. I told her I’d call back. Initially I wasn’t going to say anything about it to Walker. What would be the point? We couldn’t use Aegis now anyway. But something made me call him.

There was a silence his end, then he said: ‘Don’t say anything else. Hang up. I’ll leave you a message at reception. Don’t use this number and don’t bring your cell. Tell Cloquet not to use his phone either.’ Then he hung up.

Four hours later he picked me up in the parking lot under the Hammersmith mall. The BMW 4x4 had been replaced with a Ford mini-van that said EMMERSON ENGINEERING on the side. Seeing Zoë strapped to me in her carrier he said: ‘You know it’s going to be tough getting camouflage gear to fit her, right?’

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked him.

‘Did you leave your cellphone behind?’

‘Yes. What is it?’

‘Guess who Murdoch worked for between leaving Special Forces and joining WOCOP?’

A moment for it to sink in. Aegis. I felt stupid – and incapable of calculating what damage I might already have done. Leaving aside the warning klaxon of Proctor’s disappearance (was he dead? For refusing to rat me out? Had he been a Person I Could Trust after all?) it was obviously possible Murdoch knew about the aborted mission at Merryn’s. But if he did, why was I still alive? Maybe, like Grainer before him, he was old school, killed werewolves only in their full-moon form? In which case I had twenty-four days before I could expect an attempt on my life. And what if Draper and Khan had stuck around and seen Walker and Konstantinov arrive? Murdoch could be following us right now.

‘It’s probably okay,’ Walker said. ‘It’s ten years since Murdoch worked for Aegis, so I doubt many of his buddies are still there, but we don’t want to take unnecessary risks. Sure it’s possible he heard about Merryn’s, but there’s no reason to assume the Aegis grunts knew who you were. Besides, supernatural targets aren’t much on Murdoch’s mind right now. All he cares about is the Purge. You’re probably safe. It’s me who’s about to get shot in the head. Maybe you should drive?’

It was raining, heavily, and almost dark. We were headed west out of the city, towards the M4.

‘I should’ve told you I was thinking of using Aegis,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Forget it. But from now on...?’

‘Okay.’

It was, of course, pressing on us that we were alone together. After last night’s mutual blatancy we enjoyed a rich awkwardness. Whether I liked it or not the Whore of Babylon’s vacation was over. There was no denying what was going on, to employ Aunt Theresa’s euphemism, ‘down there’. In the morning’s snatched sleep I’d had surreal sex dreams: faceless glistening male and female bodies fucking in groggy desperation to a soundtrack like an abattoir. Sometimes I was one of them, in human form. Other times not. One very clear repeated image of dragging my monster snout across a guy’s come-lathered belly, leaving a trail of dark blood. I’d woken face hot, hands unequivocally at it between my legs. I’d hesitated – you see this through, Missy, and the genie’ll be well and truly out of the bottle – then yielded, and come, giantly, with a delicious feeling of comprehensive unravelling. Now you’ve done it. Well, yes, I had. Come what may, dark hilarity said, pun intended.

‘Anyway,’ Walker continued, ‘in the bag by your feet are two clean phones, one for you, one for the Frenchman. It’s unlikely yours were tagged, but since Proctor’s disappeared we’d be dumb to take chances. Use only these as of now. You’ll have to switch hotels too.’