Quarter Square (17 page)

Tara stood over me in a dazzle of rising sun. “Are you all right?”

I nodded.

“Sure?” She crouched to lay a comforting hand on my shoulder.

“I’ll be okay. Thanks.”

She squeezed my shoulder and moved on to the next exhausted insider. She and her assistants had already treated the wounded, including the werewolves as they changed back into human form and their injuries became apparent. Only nine Axe warriors had survived.

“I didn’t know, you know.”

Delores took Tara’s place in the sun halo.

I squinted up at her. “That your dancers were Hare panthers?”

“Yes. If I’d known, I never would have hooked up with them and brought them to the square.”

“I know.” I understood why she wanted to talk, but I simply had nothing more for her. For anyone. I’d been hollowed out.

People brought clothing into the garden and helped the Axe warriors to dress. Big Luke and Jimmy were piling Hare bodies onto carts and wheelbarrows. Others were laying the dead insiders out on one of the lawns. I hadn’t seen Min since Will died.

A new commotion broke the subdued air when the Axe mothers and children arrived in the square. Ban strode naked into the garden with Anya’s wolf body cradled in his powerful arms. He had eyes only for Shad.

Ban lowered his sister’s body to the ground and crouched beside her, stroking the fur around her neck and murmuring something to her. Then he straightened and swung a haymaker punch that knocked Shad flat on his back. It would have knocked most men into next week.

Shad got to his feet again and worked his jaw. “Ban.”

“Half our warriors are lying dead out there.”

“I know. There are more of our dead here.”

Ban half turned away and swung another massive punch at his alpha, but this time Shad deflected the blow with his forearm.

“I am hurting as much as you are,” he growled. “I gave you one because you needed it. You want another one? You will have to earn it.”

The two big bruisers stood toe-to-toe and glared at each other for long moments before Ban turned on his heel and strode back into the Wild.

Shad lifted Anya from the ground, held her tenderly to his chest and buried his face in her neck fur. When he raised his head, his tears were flowing freely. “Come,” he told his people. “We will care for our fallen.”

Min stood over me. “I can’t sing for them, but I want to be there when they tend to their dead. Are you coming?” Her throat sounded raw and painful.

I squinted up at her. “They didn’t need to die.”

“What?”

“If you and I had stayed in the Axe village, Tyac wouldn’t have attacked them on their way here. He wasn’t interested in them. It was us he wanted. They would have arrived here alive, and there would have been enough of them to take the panthers and the Hare army. I said this back there, but no one would listen.”

Her voice cracked into a hoarse whisper. “If we’d stayed alone back in the village, the ward would have faded after a few days, and Tyac would have got in.”

“We wouldn’t have been alone. They needed to send a war party here, not the entire tribe. If Anya was the only one who could sing the ward every day, she could have stayed with us. They would have managed fine when they got here.”

Angry tears blurred my vision. “Anya would still be alive. If the war party had got here in full strength, maybe Will would still be alive too.”

Min stared at the ground. A tear dropped into Will’s blood on her shirt.

“
And
we were leading Tyac right back to our friends in the square.” I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, smearing the dried blood that covered me. “You know what, love? I’m sick of other people making decisions for me. I’m sick of people assuming they’re qualified to do that. It isn’t going to happen anymore.”

She raised her head. “You mean me.”

“Among others, yes. I love you, Min, but I won’t let you control me anymore. The spoon-feeding me with only as much information as you think I can handle? That stops now. Overruling my judgement on the basis that I only remember one life? That stops too. If you love me, love me for who I am now, not who I was.”

She broke eye contact to watch the Axe leave. “You coming?”

I had some thinking to do. “Say goodbye for me.”

The silence inside the theatre made my ears roar. Most of my tools were scattered over the garden, leaving me a solitary hand axe and three wood chisels on the bench. I’d have to go round and collect them in a while. Not that I’d be doing anything more to the theatre while Tyac was still coming after me.

I stood centre stage and gazed through dust mites dancing in shafts of sunlight, but my mind was elsewhere, and I saw only violence and blood and terror and pain.

Rage exploded inside me, and I hurled the axe across the stage. It thumped into a solid vertical beam at just above head height. I imagined the beam was Tyac’s head.

“Got one of them for me?” Andrew spoke from the arena. He shuffled up onto the stage, carrying a duffel bag over one shoulder and his flute bag over the other. He looked as if he’d aged twenty years in a single night. “Know what they’re calling you out there?”

I shrugged.

“Lion man.” He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know, do you? You were roaring all through the fight. Roaring like a lion.”

What fresh bollocks was this? All I’d been doing was shouting in the heat of the moment.

“Tara said it, didn’t she? You’re a lion.”

Whatever. I nodded at the bag. “Leaving?”

“Yep. Can’t stay now they know I betrayed them.”

“Will you go to the Hare?”

“Hell no. That bitch read me like a book and used me.”

I understood. “All you wanted was for the square to live on.”

“More than that. I had this vision for the insiders to see the wider world out in the Wild and for the square to be a place where people would come together. The last thing I expected was that she’d attack us. And I didn’t know about those fucking cat dancers working for her neither.”

“Where will you go?”

“Dunno. Somewhere the Hare wizard can’t find me.”

He stood passively while I hugged him. Then he left without another word.

I stayed under the shower for ages, long after the blood had washed off and swirled down the drain. Hot water blasting onto my aching muscles helped physically, but didn’t improve my frame of mind.

I made a pot of coffee, my first in days, and leaned in the front doorway to enjoy the sounds of another innocent Barbican day getting under way.

“Lion man.” Jimmy joined me. “You okay?”

I shrugged. “You?”

He copied my shrug. “It’ll take some getting over, but we’ll manage.”

A seagull cried overhead. Answering calls from the harbour echoed up the narrow lanes.

Jimmy gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. “Don’t feel bad about the theatre. I can’t do the stuff you do, but I’ll do what I can until you come back.”

How long would that be?

He nodded at the row of abandoned motorcycles up the lane. “Might put them in the square. Those Hare guys don’t need them anymore.”

That wasn’t a bad idea. “I’ll take one for Min and me.”

“Take two. She can handle a bike.” He held out his hand awkwardly. “Look after yourself, Joe.”

I pulled him into a hug. “You too. We’ll come back as soon as we can.”

I poured another mug of coffee and returned to the doorway to enjoy the seagulls’ song, but my peace crumbled when the black car drew up at the kerb and Sebastian Merritt climbed out.

“Good morning.” He brushed past me into the building.
My
building.

I followed him as he strolled into the arena and onto the stage. He glanced around the place with a coolly interested air as I placed my coffee on the bench.

“Major activity in this area last night, Joe. Major. Are you ready to talk to me about it?” He turned his sleek smile towards me.

I caught him off balance, ran him backwards across the stage, slammed him into the upright beam and pinned him there with my hand around his throat. The axe handle jutted from the timber just above his head, but I was careful not to look at it directly.

If this bastard was Tyac, could I kill him while he was a man? Could I grab the axe and take his fucking head off?

Yes. I glared into his eyes and knew I could kill him.

He knew it too. For the flicker of an instant his eyes showed fear. Normal fear. Normal, human fear. And I knew in my gut he wasn’t the monster.

I hoped I was right anyway, because I released him and stepped away. “No, I don’t want to talk to you at all. Leave me alone.”

He was smooth. I’ll give him that. He adjusted his tie, smoothed his lapels and smiled as if I’d never laid a finger on him.

“You will want to talk to me. Unless I’m very mistaken, you’re starting to realise you’re way out of your depth with whatever’s going on around here. Then there’s the murder investigation. I’ve steered DCI Dawson away from you for the time being, because I think you’re a good investment, and I know you didn’t do it. But my patience isn’t endless, and it would only take a phone call from me to point him back in your direction. Think about it, Joe. We need each other.” He flipped a business card between his fingers and offered it.

I ignored it.

He clicked the card down next to my coffee as he walked past the bench. “You’ll be in touch.”

I watched him walk up through the arena and listened as he left the building.

“You were right to let him leave.” Min stepped from the wings. Her voice was croaky. “He isn’t Tyac.”

I breathed a sigh of relief tinged with frustration. “Tyac is still out there, though.”

“He always is, love.”

“Not for long. I’ve had enough of running. I’m going to kill him.”

“Joe.” She was horrified. “I understand how you feel, but we have to run. It’s the only way.”

“We’ll run for now, but only because I don’t want to bring any more shit down on Quarter Square. We’ll find somewhere safe to rest and recover. Then I’m going to hunt that bastard down and kill him.” I looked around the theatre. “And then I’ll come back here and keep my promise to the insiders.”

She ran across the stage into my arms. “Please. You’ve been aggressive like this before, and it always ends badly. Always. He loves it when you go for him.”

“He won’t love it this time.”

She leaned her forehead against my chest. “When you get like this, you scare me nearly as much as Tyac does.”

“I’m sick of people dying to protect me. It isn’t right, but you won’t change anything about it. So I will.”

Her shoulders shook, and her tears dampened my shirt. “When you consider the horrific deaths I’ve had to watch you suffer at Tyac’s hands, is it any wonder that I’ll do whatever is necessary to keep you with me?”

I stroked her hair. “If we keep on doing what we’ve always done, we’ll keep on getting what we’ve always got.”

Footsteps clumped down through the arena towards us. Shad, Vua and Tae had each appropriated a pair of boots, and they weren’t yet used to walking in them. They thumped up the stairs and stood before us in their newly acquired biker clothing.

“The people of Quarter Square have offered our tribe a place to live here in gratitude for what we did last night,” Shad announced.

“That’s good.”

“Not for me and my girls. We are coming with you.”

“With us?”

“I expect you will leave immediately, to get a head start on the monster?”

Min wiped her eyes, and we both nodded.

“Wherever you go, we go too. We will protect you. This is our pledge.”

Min tried to clear her throat. It sounded painful. “What about the tribe?”

“Karn and Keira are the new alphas, and a beta will emerge if one is needed. Our place is with you, Min. You are our goddess. We owe you our lifelong allegiance.”

He turned to me. “I owe you my life. I will not forget.”

“Come with us,” I decided. “We’ll leave now, but we’re not running forever. I’m going to find Tyac and kill him.”

Shad glowered. “
We
are going to find Tyac and kill him. Together.”

Vua and Tae growled their agreement.

Min moaned in distress.

I held my arm out towards Shad at shoulder level, palm facing down and parallel to the stage floor.

He lifted his eyebrows.

I jerked my hand and jutted my chin.

He thought about it. Then, slowly, he bowed his head and stepped towards me.

I placed my hand on his head and held it there. When I lifted it, he stepped back.

“We’ll hunt him down and kill him together.” My fierce war grin was back in place. “Now,
that
sounds like a plan.”