The White City

7

Mary watched it all unfold: the sudden appearance of Crows, his dragging the boat◦– their boat◦– down the beach, his conversation with Dalip and the boy’s animated response, and at one point she thought that Dalip was going to attack Crows. She held her breath, but was confused by the slump of Dalip’s shoulders. This didn’t look like they were winning.

Mama strained to see. ‘What is it? Why does Dalip look so angry?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t tell.’

‘It is Crows,’ said Elena. ‘He has done something, made a deal without us.’

‘He wouldn’t do that,’ said Mary, and reconsidered very quickly when Mama and Elena both stared at her like she was mad. ‘Okay. Let’s not lose our shit before we find out what’s happened.’

Crows hesitated as he walked◦– slowly, he was dragging a boat◦– up to them. He almost looked Mary in the eye, but turned his head away at the last moment and kept going to the water’s edge.

‘Crows? Crows, what the fuck have you done?’

Dalip chewed at his lip and rubbed his fist over his chin. He seemed close to tears.

‘Give him the maps.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me. He’s… I should just kill him, I—’

Elena dragged his arm down. ‘No. Luiza.’

‘And that is the only reason he’s still got his head on his shoulders.’

They watched as Crows dragged the boat to the line where the waves broke and ran up the beach. The boat itself looked perfectly seaworthy, sturdy and with enough room for all of them. Except, Mary realised, that was no longer her, Dalip and the others.

‘The Wolfman?’

‘Apparently so. Crows has hired him like some henchman.’

‘But why?’

‘It’s the maps. He doesn’t want to share.’ Dalip barely controlled himself. ‘Isn’t that right, Crows?’

‘The longer this goes on, the more likely it is that someone will have an accident. Please, Elena, put the box of maps in the boat.’

She didn’t. She spat on the sand instead.

‘Your cousin is still captive. She is in grave danger.’

‘You are a bastard, Crows,’ she said.

‘Very well, I will do it myself.’ He left the boat, with the waves washing up around and under it, and came back up the beach. ‘If you could all step back two or three paces. I am afraid I do not trust you.’

‘Well, that’s rich,’ said Mama, and put her hands on her hips.

Dalip waved them all back. ‘Let’s just get this over and done with. There’s no point in arguing. They’ve got Luiza, and they’ll kill her if we don’t do as Crows says.’

They were a sullen group, standing away from the crate as Crows took hold of both handles and staggered with it to the side of the boat. He lifted it up as high as he could, then pinned it there with his scrawny chest while he adjusted his grip. He pushed it up to the gunwales, and it teetered for a moment before falling inside, thumping its way down to the deck.

‘They will let her go now?’ asked Elena. The Wolfman and his crew started towards their vessel, Luiza still with them, held captive by her long hair.

‘If they did, then maybe Mary could follow them, maybe even sink them. They’re going to take her with them and kick her out on one of the islands.’

‘That is not right. We have done everything he asked. She should be free.’

‘I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do.’ With that, Dalip walked away and stared at the beach rather than witness Luiza being put into the boat and it sailing away with her.

‘Mary, you must think of something.’ Elena’s fingers closed tight on Mary’s bare shoulders and shook her. ‘You cannot allow this.’

‘What am I supposed to do?’ Her voice was high and tight. ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.’

‘Something. Anything!’

Mama folded her thick arms around Elena’s body and gently eased her away. ‘We’ll get her back. We’ll get her back and it’ll be fine. No point in getting angry with anyone but Crows◦– we’ve been played, and that’s all there is to it.’

Mary whirled around. Crows. She started towards him but he held up his finger.

‘They are warned, Mary. They know what you are capable of.’ He waited until she reached a fist-clenching stop, then reached up and pulled himself up into the boat. He disappeared for a moment as he swung over the side, then his head reappeared.

‘I can’t believe you’re doing this,’ she said.

‘You know me well enough to know I was always going to.’ The sea seemed to slap the hull hard, and it lifted a little. When it fell back down, it was deeper in the wash. ‘Let me tell you one last story before I go.’

‘I don’t want to hear it, Crows. Shut the fuck up.’

‘Ah well. Perhaps another time then.’ The next large wave sucked the boat out further.

‘There won’t be another time. When I see you next, I…’

‘What? You will kill me? I have done you no harm, Mary. I have saved you three times now. Once from Daniel, once from Bell, and now from the maps. They would have only brought you misery: best to let them go without regret.’

‘They were our maps. We were going to use them to go home.’

‘They were Bell’s maps. Then my maps. Then your maps. They were other people’s maps before they were Bell’s, and now they are mine again.’ The boat rocked, and Crows held on to the side. It was properly afloat now, and there was clear water between it and the beach.

‘Crows?’ Mary looked behind her. The Wolfman and his men were barely halfway towards them. ‘Crows? What are you doing?’

‘It is a shame you did not want to hear my story,’ he called. ‘It would have explained much.’

She walked into the sea up to her knees, but she knew the beach shelved away steeply after that. If she went much further, she’d have to swim.

‘Crows,’ she called. ‘What about the Wolfman?’

‘Please extend to him my deep sorrow at having to break our contract so early on. Such is the ever-changing nature of life.’

The boat was moving further away, and though his voice carried clearly, Crows was dwindling into the distance.

‘Crows. You have to stay.’

‘I regret that I am done on this shore. Farewell, Mary.’

‘What about Luiza?’

‘They will release her. They have no reason not to.’ With that, Crows’ head dropped from view.

Dazed, she reached out her arms and shouted: ‘Come back. Crows. Come back.’

She lost her footing, and the next wave bore her up and back towards the beach. She floundered to her feet, dripping wet, to see the Wolfman running past Dalip, towards her◦– no, towards the shrinking shape of the boat.

‘Hey!’ He splashed into the sea, raising a wave of his own. ‘Hey! Crows! We had a deal!’

Without sail or oars, the stern moved steadily away. White water started to break around it as it bobbed through the region where the waves started to rise, towards the open sea. The Wolfman pushed out further, his wolfskin cloak becoming more bedraggled with each step.

‘Crows!’

His wolves remained on the beach, running backwards and forwards, heads rising to yelp and yip. Their chain leashes rattled.

‘He’s not coming back,’ said Mary, to herself and the Wolfman. ‘He’s leaving without us.’

The Wolfman found the drop-off, and went from thigh-deep to neck-deep in a matter of moments. He gasped and splashed.

‘Crows!’

She turned her frustration on him. ‘Don’t you get it, you fucking idiot? He played you just like he played us. He’s got everything he wanted, and we’ve got nothing.’

The Wolfman found his feet and waded quickly back to dry land. His jaw was set and he was breathing hard. Further away, the man holding Luiza had come to a halt, uncertain what to do. The other man with him was, in turn, shouting back to the two more distant figures at the top of the dune.

Mary took a second to register the situation: everyone was angry, afraid, and upset. She’d seen this before: yes, it was a beach, but it was also very street. As much as she wanted to set off after Crows◦– and she could, she realised◦– it would mean leaving this incendiary mix to combust all on its own.

She started for the shore herself, lifting her sodden skirts clear of the water. She stared meaningfully at Dalip, who had stopped looking at the wolves for long enough to realise what was going on.

His hand flexed around the handle of the machete, and she deliberately, subtly, shook her head. She pointed at Elena and Mama, and began to innocently make her way towards them.

The Wolfman bent over, hands on his knees, gasping. His wolves trotted around him, high-stepping out of the surf, alternately gazing out to sea and then looking up at their master. He straightened up, wiped his nose with his sleeve, and tilted his head back.

His scream of rage and abandonment went on for so long that Mary thought that it sounded more wolf than man. The wolves crumbled to dust, their chains lasting for a moment longer before they too flowed into the sand.

Mary and Dalip stood shoulder to shoulder, making a wall of their bodies to protect Mama and Elena. They were both tensed and ready.

The Wolfman didn’t even look in their direction. He strode out, walking quickly for a few steps, then broke into a loping run, back up the beach, towards his men.

‘What’s he doing?’ asked Dalip.

‘Fuck knows.’ They were suddenly alone. ‘We need to get everyone together, and, and…’

‘And what?’

‘Get after Crows.’ She looked over her shoulder. The boat was only a black speck now, bobbing up and down with the waves. She looked back, and felt Dalip stiffen. The Wolfman was still running. His long knife was in his hand and he was heading straight for the man holding on to Luiza. ‘No. He can’t.’

Dalip put his head down and sprinted, and she began to do the same, before realising that neither of them was going to make it in time. She had to hope that it wasn’t as bad as it looked, that nothing was going to happen, that he was just running off his fury.

The Wolfman seemed to punch Luiza in the stomach so hard that she folded almost in two around his fist. The man holding her couldn’t untangle his fingers from her hair fast enough to just let her drop to the ground; instead, she hung there, hands trying to fend off her attacker, pushing ineffectually at his face and chest.

The Wolfman stepped back, and she flopped on the sand, at first to her knees, then toppling hard on to her side. Her head hit the ground, and didn’t move.

Dalip ran a few more steps, and stopped. Mary walked slowly forward until she was almost, but not quite, within arm’s length of the Wolfman.

The man held up his bloodied hand. He was soaked to the elbow.

‘Why did you do that?’ she asked him.

‘Revenge,’ he said.

‘But—’

‘Revenge on Down. Revenge on you and him and everything.’ He shook his fist at her. ‘Do what you will. I’m done with this place.’

‘You stabbed her.’

Dalip knelt down and his hand hovered over Luiza, uncertain as to what to do next. He brushed her hair from her cheek. Her eyes were wide open and unblinking. He looked up at Mary. ‘I… she’s…’

Elena tumbled down next to her cousin, and threw her arms around her. She gathered her up, and the way that Luiza’s head lolled, her mouth opening slightly, left no doubt. There was no breath left in her, no heartbeat, no light.

Mary already knew. It wasn’t like she was a stranger to it.

‘You didn’t need to do… that. You just didn’t.’

‘You’re wrong. So very wrong, you little black whore. I did need to do it. I’m going to keep on doing it from now on. Kill and kill and kill until there’s no one left on Down. And there’s no Bell or Crows to stop me.’

Dalip stood up and scrubbed a tear away with the back of his hand. ‘I’ll stop you.’

The Wolfman laughed in his face and lunged at him with his bloody knife. Dalip parried, once, twice, then launched his own counter-attack, stepping surely over the uneven, shifting surface as he swung and swung at the Wolfman’s weapon hand.

Mary could end this, quickly and simply. Conjure up a storm of sand and thrust it down the Wolfman’s nose and throat, choke him and let him die, clawing at his heaving chest. But Dalip seemed intent on finishing it himself. His face was expressionless, save for the slight furrowing of his brows, and his body moved in a ballet of blows and blocks that defied his opponent’s crude violence.

The Wolfman retreated before him, grunting with effort. His long knife was narrow and wholly unsuitable protection against the cleaving machete. Yet neither could he get anywhere near Dalip: every feint, every stab, was either knocked aside with finger-numbing force or avoided with a lithe twist of his body.

‘Help. Help me,’ he said to his colleague. His knife snapped halfway up the blade, the pointed end spinning away.

The man saw Mary’s slow shake of her head and started to back away.

Dalip brought the heavy edge down, cut through the meat and tendons on the back of the Wolfman’s hand. The rest of the knife dropped to the ground, and the Wolfman reeled.

Now he was alone, deserted by everyone he’d counted on. He snarled one last time and went for the knife hilt, sticking up out of the sand. And Dalip cracked his skull like a coconut. Death was instantaneous, but it still took a few moments for his fur-clad body to stop moving. The beach began to darken around him.

The machete was still wedged tight. Dalip put his bare foot on the Wolfman’s unprotesting neck and worked it free.

‘That,’ he said, ‘was no more than justice.’

Mary brought her hands up to her face and dragged her fingers down from her forehead to her chin. ‘Do we let the others go?’

They watched their heels running back up the beach towards the dunes.

‘We could spend days hunting them down. It’s not worth it. Without him, they’re scattered. And we need to stay here, to get the next boat.’

She swallowed hard. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault.’

Looking out to sea, Crows was nowhere to be seen, though he had to be somewhere in the swell between the shore and the horizon.

‘I’m going after him,’ she said.

‘We’re all going after him.’

‘No. Now.’ And with that, she changed, no longer caring about what Dalip might or might not see. She called once, a piercing, high-pitched shriek, and then she was off, streaking over the beach, passing over the upturned faces of Mama and Dalip, over Elena’s bowed head and Luiza’s sightless eyes. She worked her wings to gain both speed and height, and then headed determinedly out over the breaking waves.

She had no idea what she was going to do or say when she found him.