The Anxiety of Kalix the Werewolf Read online

  “I’m someone from another dimension!” said Vex brightly.

  “—butting in with some weird problem or a fashion crisis or something like that. Who could do any pursuing with all that going on? My failure with Moonglow has mitigating circumstances.”

  Vex took a bright red lipstick from her Hello Kitty bag and busied herself at the mirror. Her lips were already a brilliant red, but she liked to put on extra layers. Daniel, now in good voice, carried on.

  “And then we’ve been working in that horrible supermarket all summer and I was so tired when I got home I couldn’t do anything except lie on the couch.”

  Vex paused momentarily to nod in agreement. They’d all found it hard, working in the supermarket. For much of the summer, the commonest sight to be seen in their flat was Daniel, Vex, Kalix and Moonglow all strewn around the living room, tired out after their long day’s work.

  “It’s time for it to end.”

  Vex looked around. Her lips were deep red. “What’s coming to an end?”

  “Moonglow not going out with me.”

  “Are you going to grab her in the cinema?”

  “Possibly.”

  Vex burst out laughing, which deflated Daniel.

  “What’s funny?”

  “The idea of you grabbing Moonglow.”

  “Just wait and see.”

  Vex grinned. She’d have been quite happy to see Daniel going out with Moonglow, but she didn’t anticipate it happening anytime soon. The conversation ended as Moonglow came down the stairs.

  Vex greeted her enthusiastically. “Hi, Moonglow you’re looking nice. Look at my kilt. I’m wearing tartan in honor of Kalix’s birthday. Because she’s Scottish. They like tartan.”

  Moonglow smiled, admiring Vex’s choice. Vex’s kilt was tiny, displaying her slender legs from thigh to knee, beneath which they disappeared into her customary large boots, giving her the look of a character from one of her favorite Japanese cartoons.

  “Do you think I might meet a boyfriend at the party?” said Vex.

  Moonglow frowned. Moonglow had no objection to Vex having a boyfriend, but she didn’t quite approve of the way Vex had been fixating on it recently. The young Elemental seemed to have developed the notion that she was somehow lacking without a boyfriend, a notion that Moonglow was sure she’d picked up from the enormous amount of manga she read online.

  “Just because girls in comics want boyfriends doesn’t mean you need to have one,” she’d told Vex. Vex hadn’t paid any attention.

  Daniel had brushed his hair and put on the new jacket selected for him by Moonglow a few months ago.

  “Everyone ready for the cinema?” said Moonglow. “Where’s our birthday girl?”

  “I’m right here!” cried Vex and began hopping up and down.

  “Right. I meant our other birthday girl. The werewolf.”

  “I’m here,” said Kalix, appearing from her room upstairs. Kalix was smiling excitedly. She’d brushed her very long hair, and it shone as it streamed down past her shoulders, in contrast with her dull gray coat. As always, Kalix’s outfit contrasted strongly with the bright and colorful Vex. The young werewolf was averse to wearing anything colorful. Beneath her coat she wore a pair of jeans that had faded to a neutral gray, bought from the local charity shop. She had a new Runaways T-shirt, a birthday present from Daniel and Moonglow. They knew that Kalix would only wear the T-shirt if it were either black or white, so they’d picked white, with the band’s figures outlined in black. Kalix was very happy with the T-shirt.

  “Everybody ready?” asked Moonglow.

  “Wait!” cried Kalix. “I forgot my keys.” Kalix hurried back up the stairs.

  “I forgot my keys too,” said Daniel. He headed back toward his room.

  “Did I forget anything?” asked Vex.

  “I don’t know,” replied Moonglow. “Did you?”

  “I better check,” said Vex, and rushed upstairs.

  Moonglow was left on her own in the living room. Kalix was the first to reappear.

  “I got my keys.” She paused. “But I forgot my money.”

  Kalix bounded back up the stairs. Moonglow pursed her lips. It could be a difficult task getting everyone out of the house.

  Daniel appeared. “Got my keys,” he said.

  “Did you bring your wallet?”

  Daniel felt in his pockets. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and hurried off.

  How did I become everyone’s mother? thought Moonglow. I’m too young to be in charge of three idiots.

  Beauty and Delicious were surprised at how easily Dominil had been persuaded to attend Kalix’s birthday party. They’d assumed she’d refuse and had been preparing to assail her with a long string of reasons as to why she should attend. Kalix was a fellow werewolf, she was Dominil’s cousin, and she had on one occasion saved Dominil’s life. Besides, as Beauty pointed out, Dominil lived the most boring life imaginable, visiting art galleries and translating Latin poetry. It would do her good to let her hair down.

  “Although her hair is pretty much straight down already,” said Delicious.

  “True. But it is a bit weird, being so white. She should let us dye it.”

  Beauty’s hair was bright pink and Delicious’s a vivid blue. The twins devoted a lot of time and energy to hair maintenance. It was worth the effort. Even in Camden, where brightly colored coiffures were common, the magnificence of the sisters’ brightly colored tresses could still attract attention as they sauntered down the pavement. Their visits to a salon in Knightsbridge were expensive, but they could afford it. Their parents had died in an accident, making Beauty and Delicious wealthy at a young age. They’d wasted no time in decamping to London to engage in a riotous lifestyle. The rest of the clan didn’t approve, but Beauty and Delicious didn’t care what the rest of the clan thought.

  “So why is Dominil coming to Kalix’s party?”

  It was puzzling. Even though Dominil had been acting as manager of the twins’ band, she’d resolutely refused to join in with their lifestyle. Dominil would never visit pubs or clubs. But now she’d agreed to travel south of the river to Kalix’s birthday party, and she hadn’t even complained about it.

  “Dominil likes Kalix, I suppose,” said Delicious. “More than us, anyway.”

  “True. Though I wouldn’t have thought she liked her enough to put up with a lot of drunken werewolves.”

  “What drunken werewolves?”

  “Us. Dominil has this weird thing about not liking drunken werewolves. It’s a flaw in her character.”

  “Maybe she’s looking for a man?”

  The twins roared with laughter. The twins amused themselves with the continual fantasy that Dominil was desperate to find a boyfriend. There was no reason to believe this was true, though Dominil had been known to engage with the opposite sex. She’d once spent the night with Pete, their guitarist. Dominil had initiated this, and ended the relationship immediately afterward. Pete had never gotten over it. He still longed for Dominil, though she’d shown no interest in continuing the relationship.

  The phone in the living room rang.

  “I’m outside,” said Dominil.

  The twins rushed out to Dominil’s car, clutching their bags. It was mid-afternoon and they were due to meet the others at the Odeon Cinema in Marble Arch. The twins weren’t particularly keen on the Runaways, but they were willing to watch any film about a rock band.

  “I hope there’s lots of drugs and stuff,” said Beauty. “And alcohol.”

  “And sex,” said Delicious. “At the same time. Hi, Dominil, looking forward to the movie?”

  “Not really,” said Dominil, and pulled carefully away from the curb.

  “Is there any chance you could not drive like a nervous eighty-year-old?” asked Beauty as Dominil carefully negotiated the turn into the main road in Camden. Her cautious driving was another target of the twins’ mockery.

  “Did the Mistress of the Werewolves call you?” said Delicious.<
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  “Yes,” replied Dominil. “Why do you ask?”

  “We wondered if she nagged you into going to the party, to check up on Kalix.”

  Dominil halted at a traffic light at Mornington Crescent. She turned to stare at Delicious.

  “I assume that you called the Mistress of the Werewolves yourself, to ask her to pressurize me into attending?”

  “We may have,” said Delicious.

  Dominil scowled. The twins knew that Verasa MacRinnalch, Kalix’s mother, held Dominil in high regard. They also knew that Verasa worried about her errant daughter, far away in London. Asking her to persuade Dominil to attend the party had been their idea of a cunning plan.

  “There was no need,” said Dominil. “I had already accepted the invitation.”

  “But why? You’re so antisocial. Beauty, isn’t Dominil antisocial?”

  “The most antisocial werewolf in the clan,” agreed Beauty. “I think she holds some sort of record.”

  Dominil’s lips compressed slightly, but she didn’t engage with the twins. It would be a waste of time. When Beauty and Delicious were excited, as they were now, there was no way of preventing them from talking nonsense. Since taking on the task of managing their band, Dominil had learned to ignore it. She followed the one-way system through Camden before taking the main road toward Oxford Street, bringing them to a large underground car park close to the cinema.

  “Wouldn’t it be funny if the car broke down?” said Delicious as they emerged into the street above.

  “Why would it be funny?” asked Dominil.

  “Because we’re all going to turn into werewolves in a few hours, of course. We’d be werewolves in the middle of town. Owwooo!”

  “It would not be funny at all,” said Dominil sternly. “And the car won’t break down. I had it serviced recently.”

  “Owwooo!” Beauty joined in with her sister, imagining themselves already to be werewolves. Passersby looked at the girls and smiled. It was odd behavior, howling in the street for no apparent reason, but given the brightness of the sisters’ hair and clothes, it didn’t seem out of character. Students, they imagined. Or perhaps some sort of alternative models, with their pink, blue and snow-white hair.

  “Kalix and her friends are in the foyer,” said Dominil. “Now stop howling and start behaving. I’m expecting this film to be tedious enough without having to listen to you making fools of yourselves all the way through.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Sarapen MacRinnalch stood on the roof of the great palace, gazing at the lava that poured down the eastern slopes of the Eternal Volcano. Flames crackled above the molten rock and the air shimmered. The first time Sarapen had seen the approaching lava he’d felt a mild sense of alarm; it seemed that the palace would soon be overwhelmed and swamped by the molten liquid. He was used to it now. The Royal Palace of the Hainusta was connected to the volcano, existing with it in some sort of symbiotic relationship. Rather than causing harm, the fiery outpouring of the volcano gave power to the Empress and her people.

  Sarapen knew that he shouldn’t be able to stand so close to the boiling lava. The heat should have driven him back. He hardly felt it. Empress Kabachetka had worked spells on him, enabling him to exist in her land. Since taking control of the volcano, Kabachetka’s power had greatly increased. Here in her own land there seemed to be little she couldn’t do. She could enable a werewolf to exist alongside the Fire Elementals. She could cause a werewolf to live when he should have died. Sarapen’s fingers touched his chest, something he did quite often these days, unconsciously. Beneath his shirt there was a terrible scar. Even the Empress’s healing powers couldn’t get rid of that. But she had prevented him from dying, though the Begravar knife that had pierced his chest should have been lethal. No werewolf could survive such a strike. The weapon had been designed specially to confuse and kill any shape-shifting creature. It was always lethal against werewolves. It was also forbidden. No werewolf would use it against a fellow member of the clan.

  “Apart from Kalix, of course,” murmured Sarapen. “She had no hesitation about thrusting it into my chest.”

  The huge werewolf smiled. He despised his sister Kalix, but somehow he didn’t hold it against her that she’d stabbed him with the Begravar knife. At the time, he’d been trying to kill her. Most probably he’d have used the knife on Kalix if he could. Clan traditions were important, but the most important thing about a war was to win it, and Kalix had done that.

  “I’ll pay her back one day,” he muttered.

  Sarapen was the eldest son of the old Thane. He was the strongest werewolf in the MacRinnalch clan. He should have been elected as leader when his father died. His mother had seen to it that he hadn’t been. Thanks to Verasa, his brother Markus was the new Thane. His mother, his brother and both his sisters had all conspired against him.

  “But I’m still alive,” mused Sarapen. “That would surprise them. Alive and stuck in an alien dimension. That surprises me.”

  He heard a soft footstep behind him. Only the Empress had access to this part of the roof. She approached him from behind and put a hand on his shoulder. Sarapen didn’t turn around.

  “I still want to go back,” said Sarapen.

  There was a moment’s silence. When the young Empress spoke there was a note of frustration in her voice. “I can’t send you back yet. The after-effects of the Begravar knife will kill you if you return to Earth.”

  Sarapen remained silent, staring out over the streams of lava.

  “Why go back anyway?” said Kabachetka. “What’s in Scotland for you? A clan that betrayed you? Werewolves who don’t appreciate you?”

  “I should be Thane,” said Sarapen.

  “So what? How would that compare to staying in a palace with an Empress?” Kabachetka edged her way to his side, placing her arm around his frame. “I know you miss your home. I’ll be able to send you back sometime. My sorcerers are working on it. Meanwhile . . .”

  The Empress stood on her tiptoes to kiss Sarapen, embracing him as she did. She liked to put her arms around Sarapen. His muscles felt like steel beneath his garments.

  Sarapen kissed her back, not as passionately as the Empress would have liked. She withdrew her lips and gazed into his eyes.

  “Your mind is elsewhere.”

  Sarapen nodded.

  “Are you thinking about your clan?”

  “You said you’d bring me news.”

  The Empress sighed. “I really have little business on Earth these days. It’s difficult for me to bring news.”

  Sarapen nodded. He didn’t know whether to believe the Empress or not. She always sounded sincere, but the werewolf found it hard to believe she knew nothing of his relations back on Earth. He turned to gaze out over the red rock landscape that fell away in a long slope beyond the volcano.

  “Now you’re thinking about going to fight in the desert!” exclaimed the Empress, and sounded cross.

  “I thought you weren’t going to read my aura,” said Sarapen.

  “I am not reading your aura. I never learned to read werewolf auras. It’s perfectly obvious you want to go and fight in the desert. Or anywhere away from me, I suppose.”

  Sarapen didn’t reply. There was a long-standing conflict between the Hainusta and the Hiyasta in the Western Desert. Sarapen was tired of the palace, and having no other prospect that pleased him, he’d asked the Empress to send him to the fighting. The Empress had so far demurred.

  “I can’t understand why you’d want to go and fight anyway. I have a beautiful palace and beautiful lands. And I’m beautiful too.”

  Sarapen looked at her. He nodded. “You are. But I don’t belong in this palace.”

  For a brief second it seemed as if the Empress might flare up in anger. Instead, she laughed and put her arm around him again.

  “You’ll change your mind, Sarapen. I’m a much better prospect than fighting in the desert. Or a gloomy castle full of werewolves.”

  CHAPTER 10

/>   Dominil’s calm exterior showed signs of fraying as the twins prevaricated at the refreshment stand.

  “I can’t make up my mind,” said Beauty.

  “Me neither,” said her sister.

  “Maybe we should just buy everything?”

  “I want everything too!” cried Vex, who had a very sweet tooth.

  “Do you want anything, Kalix?” asked Daniel, raising his voice to compete with Vex and the twins.

  Kalix shook her head.

  “A hot dog? Maybe they could give you a raw one?”

  Kalix looked outraged, and turned to Moonglow. “Tell Daniel to stop making jokes about me eating raw hot dogs!”

  “Daniel, stop making jokes about Kalix eating raw hot dogs.”

  Moonglow and Dominil looked at the squabbling mass in front of the confectionery stall. Moonglow sighed.

  “It’s like taking children to the pictures.”

  “Indeed,” agreed Dominil. “I’m not sure how I ended up in this position.”

  “I know!” said Moonglow. “That’s just how I feel. How did I end up being the mother?”

  Dominil and Moonglow shared a brief moment of empathy before shepherding their charges into the cinema. Fortunately for their state of mind, the cinema was quiet for the afternoon showing, and there were few people there to witness the loud behavior of their party. They trooped through the corridor, looking for the correct screen in the large cinema complex.

  “Does everyone have their tickets?” asked Moonglow.

  “I’ve lost mine,” said Vex.

  “How do you know? You didn’t even check.”

  “I just assumed,” said Vex, and started fumbling in her pocket. “Oh, here it is!” She brandished her ticket triumphantly.

  “I’ve lost my ticket,” said Daniel.

  Moonglow scowled at him. “Stop making jokes.”