Skulk (30 page)

“What? No, it’s not Meg who’s the traitor, it’s Fran,” Mo snapped.

Don gave him a look so contemptuous it was almost pity. “You must think I’m a total moron.
Fran
? Fran’s been part of the Skulk for
years
. She’s been nothing but loyal.”

“That’s exactly what she wants you to think,” I said, more than half to myself. As soon as the words had tumbled over my tongue I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell Don would ever believe me. “She murdered Blackwell, we were
just there
. She wanted to absorb his powers and become the metashifter but it didn’t work – if course it wouldn’t, the metashifter is
here
.”

My head was spinning. I raised my hands to run them through my hair, as if the solution to all this weirdness was in there somewhere.

Mo stepped up close behind me. “She said she was with Victoria. We heard her. She said it!”

Don shook his head. “Why would she say that if there was nobody but a corpse there?”

I rolled my eyes. “He wasn’t dead yet, he...” I stopped.
He asked her. He must have seen me. He asked her so she’d tell us. Thank you, Blackwell.

“You’re just picking on her for your scapegoat because she’s not here to defend herself. Just like Ben. How long did you think you could get away with pretending to take his place before he came back?” Don reached for the door and started to shut it. “Get out, whatever you are. The Skulk doesn’t need you.”

“Wait,” I shoved my foot in the door just as Don tried to slam it, and let out a yelp of pain. “It’s not me, it’s got to be one of the others. You’ve got to make them tell you who they are. They’re supposed to be the one in charge of fixing all of this.”

“I won’t spread any more of your nonsense,” Don snarled.

“I’m not leaving. I want to talk to Addie, where is she?”

“She’s sleeping,” Don hissed, “And you’re crazy if you think I’m going to let you disturb her. Get out.” He gave a great heave and I had to move my foot to avoid being crushed as he slammed the door in our faces.

“You’d better watch out!” I yelled, hammering on the door with both fists. “You can’t trust Fran. Addie, please, don’t let them trust her!”

“Oi!”

I looked up. Don’s neighbours’ windows were open. A man was leaning out, shirtless, his hair sticking up at all angles.

“Keep it down. It’s gone midnight!”

“Sorry,” said Mo, taking my arm. “Wrong house.” He pulled me away.

“She killed someone, don’t trust her!” I yelled, one more time, before Mo steered me off down the street, one arm around my shoulders. I shook him off and stumbled to a halt, burying my face in my hands. “I don’t believe – I can’t believe they won’t even listen.”

“Well, I’m listening,” he said. “We’ll work this out.”

I nodded, miserably. “Maybe.” I took a long deep breath and let it out slowly.

“You know what, vandalising my school seemed like such a good idea at the time,” I said. “I sort of wish I’d just stayed at home.”

Mo laughed. It was a brief, throaty sort of chuckle.

I stared into the middle distance, my shoulders hunched. “I’ve got to get into the Shard and get those stones back. I’m not going to get anything from the Skulk, or the metashifter. Blackwell’s dead. The Cluster stone is gone.” My voice was low and cold. “I’ve got to just
do
it. I don’t know why I thought I could get this bunch of idiots to help me. I have nothing now I didn’t have two days ago. Actually I have
less
.”

Mo didn’t even hesitate. “You have me.”

My heart melted so fast I could practically feel it dribbling out of my chest cavity and pooling in my shoes. I looked up at him. “You shouldn’t come. It’s dangerous, I’ll probably die. I don’t want you to die. I mean, think about the loss to the art world. You’re E3. I can’t–”

“Bollocks to that. All great artists die tragically young, right?” He smiled. “We can go together. Come on, let’s get warm and come up with a plan.”

He turned and strode off down the road, without waiting for me, and sure enough I ran to keep up.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The Finchley Road all-night McDonalds was warm and welcoming, once Mo had found enough loose change in his pockets to buy a small cup of coffee. The manager didn’t seem to mind that we made it last nearly five hours. I guessed she was pleased to have someone in who wasn’t falling-down pissed or liable to try and strangle the staff.

Mo called Susanne.

“This is all screwed up now, Mum,” he said softly. “One of the Skulk has betrayed them, it was the one called Fran.” I heard the tinny echo of a raised, angry voice. “She’s killed Meg’s Conspiracy friend. We’re fine! We’re in a McDonalds. Yeah, is he… oh? Oh, good. OK.” He moved the phone a little away from his mouth and looked up at me. “Marcus thinks he’s found the new shifter. He’s not sure yet though. Him and Mum are going to stake them out.” He put the phone back. “Yeah, it’s fine – we can wait here till the first Tube. I think so. I think… we’ve got to go up there, Mum. There’s nothing else we can do, the Skulk are being useless. And Meg’s pretty sure one of them is the metashifter and just hasn’t told us. Yeah, I know. Yeah, we’ll be OK. Honestly.” He glanced at me and I wondered if that was as much for my benefit as Susanne’s. “I know.” He turned his face to the window. I watched the reflection of his eyes squeeze shut and then open and look out, deep and serious. A small, private smile crossed his lips. I looked away, feeling like I was intruding. “I know. They would. Anyway, I’ll call you as soon as we get home, if you’re not there.” He swallowed. “Love you too.”

He put the phone down on the plastic table and pushed it around with one finger for a while, the slight squeak only making the awkward silence more awkward.

I don’t remember the last time I told my parents I loved them.

I don’t know if I do love them.

You’re supposed to love your parents, aren’t you? Almost no matter what they do to you. It’s supposed to be built in, like breathing. You only get a pass if you’re a psychopath or they’ve abused you, or both. My parents could’ve been a lot,
lot
worse. So I was meant to feel
something
right?

Susanne wasn’t even Mo’s mother – not his biological mother, not the woman who was supposed to have the natural imperative to love him and teach him to be good and prepare him for whatever the world could throw at him – and he probably had a better relationship with her than I’d ever had with any adult, ever.

I dropped my head into my hands and stared at the speckled pattern in the plastic. Was that by design, or was it just corrosion from decades of bleach and salt and grease?

In my mind’s eye, Dad’s beak snapped down on Aaron’s defenceless, furry body.

Dad was never violent. He wasn’t like Mum. He didn’t have a furious bone in his body. In comparison, he was the sane one. But he was useless at everything but making money: whatever skills he had in the office did not transfer to parenting. I think he saw me as Mum’s problem, like a dog he hadn’t really wanted. Nice to have around the place in a very vague sort of way, but not something he ever had to
deal
with – that was what staff were for.

Was there anything left of that man, now? The
worst
thing was obviously the fact that he’d been turned into an evil pigeon who had tried to kill me, but the second worst thing was not knowing if he could ever come back. Not knowing if I could fix it.

The truth coiled in my stomach, like a venomous snake.

I wished they were dead. I wished they’d just died. I’d have cried, and then I would have been free.

Some normal way, like a car accident? Like Mo’s parents? Just what kind of an awful person thought like that? Hot tears of shame coated my eyes and I squeezed them shut.

I had hope that they might come back, that they might one day be able to make amends. That was more than Mo would ever have again. I didn’t want it, but that was just tough. I had to make the most of it.

“Can I help?” Mo said softly.

I took a deep breath and spread my hands on the table, steadying myself on its inarguably real, sticky, pockmarked surface.

“I’m OK. Just thinking about Mum and Dad.”

There was an awkward silence. Then Mo stretched hugely, his long gangly arms seeming to reach halfway to the ceiling. “All right. Tell me again. Tell me everything.”

I talked him through it, focusing on that first night – but nothing I said seemed to strike him as out of the ordinary, once you’d discounted the murder and shapeshifting. I dragged a fine tooth comb through my memories, but there was nothing to suggest I wasn’t a Skulk shifter.

“You’re sure?” Mo frowned. “You’ve never changed into anything else?”

“Never,” I said. “I went fox that first night completely on instinct.”

“So who do you think it is?” Mo asked.

“Well, not Fran.” I held out six fingers and folded one down at once. “We know she’s only got the fox shape, because she tried to take Blackwell’s. And,” I realised, my heart lifting a bit, “she must not know the metashifter was in the Skulk all along, because it would be much simpler to just kill that one person than try to collect the set.”

“What about Don?” Mo asked. “Didn’t you say that shifting runs in his family?”

“Yeah… his father and grandfather were in the Skulk. But I don’t think it’s him. If he could change into a butterfly he would’ve been up at Kew telling you all what to do as well as us. It’d give him a legit excuse to be lord of all he surveyed. He couldn’t keep something like this a secret.”

“So who’s left?”

“Addie, Randhir, James, and… Ben.” I blinked as I said his name and the wrong face automatically sprang to mind. “The real Ben.” I took the tiniest sip of coffee known to man, barely wetting my lips. It tasted of burnt plastic. “It could be him. I don’t know anything about him. It could be Rand – but he didn’t say anything about it. And if he could be in any weard he wouldn’t pick the Skulk, because it means he has to hang out with Don.”

“James?”

“Maybe.” I thought of his glittering dragon’s cave. “Do ravens like things that are shiny?”

“I think that’s magpies.”

I thought it might be ravens as well, but I shrugged. “He could be. But then wouldn’t he fly away from the scene of the crime, rather than wearing a bag round his neck?”

“So what about Addie, then?”

“I want to say no.”

“But you can’t?”

“I…” I tapped my fingers on the table. “I think she’d have the most reason to lie about it. She has everything to lose. I wouldn’t begrudge her not telling me, not for a second.”

“So we think it could be Ben or Addie?”

“I think so.” I leaned forward and let my head rest on the table, gently pushing the coffee out of the way with both hands as I slid down. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to do now.” I took a deep breath and lifted my head. “My dad partly built the Shard, did I tell you that?” I said. Mo shook his head. “His company was involved in the inside architecture. The apartments are all custom-built. He knew Victoria, as a client, before I ever became a shifter. I’ve actually been up there. They had a party for all the architects on the top floor, right before they opened the View.” If I’d only known then that there was a homicidal sorceress living right below me…

“Dad’s plans might help us get in, maybe even show us where to look for the stones, and I can get them off his laptop, but that means we need to go back to my house, and I’m...” my throat closed over the word “scared” but I swallowed and plunged on. “I’m not sure that’s a great idea.”

Mo reached over the plastic table and put his hands on mine where they cupped the dribble of cold coffee in its paper cup.

“Well, I’m a little unsure about going up thousands of feet in the air to battle a sorceress,” he said. “So how about I look after you in your house, and you look after me in the Shard?”

“It’s a deal,” I said.

Dawn eventually broke over the high street, and we staggered out, bleary-eyed, into the awful daylight.

It was only 7am and still dark when we got back to Susanne’s house – and both of us breathed a sigh of relief when we saw that the lights were on. Whether that meant they’d found the new Rabble shifter, or lost them, I didn’t really care right then. As long as they were OK.

Mo slipped his keys in the door.

“Hello?” said a voice I didn’t recognise.

As we opened the door into the hall, a woman stepped out of the living room. She was short and slight, with close-cropped black hair. She was wringing her hands, twisting a ring with a tiny diamond on it round and round her finger.

“Are you – who are you?” he asked. “Where’s my mum?”

“She’s not here,” the woman said. “I had to break in. I’m so sorry, I’d never normally do this, nothing’s actually broken, I promise.”

“Who
are
you?” I repeated. She was wearing jeans and a white shirt, but I smelled something oddly familiar, even as a human – the smell of hospitals. Her shoes were bright blue crocs.

“My name’s Roxie Shinawatra,” the woman said. “I’m from the Horde.” The shoes and the smell all clicked into place.

“It’s true,” I told Mo, “She was there when I went to find them. She did this to me,” I said, pointing to the scratches across my face, which would’ve been much more dramatic if they’d been a bit bigger.

“You’re the Skulk girl?” Roxie cringed. “Listen, the Skulk’s never been good news for the Horde, and then you come – well,
skulking
into our meeting place in the middle of the night. What were we supposed to think?”

“Well, perhaps you could’ve heard me out before jumping on me,” I snapped. “I was trying to tell you that you were all in danger.”

Roxie’s face crumpled. “And we should have listened to you.”

“Let’s go inside,” said Mo, gesturing to the sitting room. “You can tell us what happened.”

Roxie nodded miserably. As she turned away to go back into the sitting room I saw that she had a big plaster on the back of her neck.

Roxie settled on the sofa and Mo vanished for a minute and came back with a big jug of water and three glasses, only two of which had
Simpsons
characters etched on them. Roxie picked the Lisa Simpson glass and poured herself a drink.