Burnt Blood: The Werewolf Within

Twenty Four

With a panicked dryness parching my throat, my eyes darted back and forth in the mirror, ensuring they stayed within my sight. The plan was to complete a quick loop without running lights, double back to Waterloo Bridge, shoot over, and head towards the A10. There, I'd have the chance to put my foot down a little—reaching the A201, a quick mirror check, and it was suddenly gone.

It couldn't have been my imagination; the behaviour was too suspect. Maybe the rider realised they'd been made and backed off. Either way, it was bloody strange and worrying. But I could breathe a sigh of relief. The chaos was getting to me. I was on edge for the next twenty minutes; my head was on a swivel until I neared the skipper's home. One turning short of Dilson Road.

The street nearby was dead; keeping the window open, I dropped my lights again, creeping forward, looking at every car I passed. Not a van in sight, but plenty of vehicles; most I could picture belonging to a neighbour. Turning into Dilson, it was much the same dark black night sky. Faulty street lights here and there. Eerie, but nothing, stood out. Two doors down, that's how close I was—paused, feeling how easy it had suddenly become. If that was possible, the outside world had got quieter—no nightingales or insects, no footsteps or rumbles of passing cars. I ditched my car in the shadows by a service road leading to some garages.

Like Kelcher and co came steaming to my back when I found Chris, with no thought or foresight, tempted to rush through the front door; this wasn't the time. I needed to think and scan my surroundings better. Think how a burglar would—looking for alternative entry and escape routes.

Even if I took the lazy front door with no issues, I once needed a good Plan B—failure to prepare and prepare to fail, as they say. The service road sloped over rough brown concrete to a row of dilapidated garages.

The doors went white, blue, white, and blue, alternating. A little to the left was a muddy alleyway with tufts of grass bearing up to the left and right. That was the path I needed in an emergency. It ran behind the gardens, so if the shit hits the fan. I can escape via the garden door and skip the fence without breaking my neck. That was the plan in my head, at least until I stepped out of the comfort of my car.

A damp, smog-riddled breeze rushed past my face from right to left. Ominous until I caught the metallic aftertaste. The hackles rippled to attention in the wind like the rasping spray from a deck of cards. It was blood. With the changing direction of the gust, I couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from, but being so close to Skip's home had me fearing the worst.

The stomach-twisting knots were coming, and I couldn't stop them. Muscles pulled, pinged, and twisted; I felt bone-jarring pain roaring through me. It felt worse than before. A glance at my hand, the ghostly grey claws slid scarily forward, and blood gushed, but that wasn't what I smelt. My body was changing, my skin darkening, I was looking harder; I felt bigger, and I felt a more rigid shell. I shifted, and it terrified me.

Rushed thoughts blazed through my head; my eyes were drawn upwards to the glaring full moon. My body was on fire, trying to handle all my emotions at once; fear, panic, anger, and power rumbled into one. I struggled to control my feelings. That smell triggered the other part of me. I don't know how; I don't know why. But I feared being caught. Panicking over where that blood came from, I hoped it wasn't the skipper's home. Not again. Yet, the anger surprised me, an uncontrollable rage that had my blood boiling, heart pounding, and a lust for inflicting nerve-shredding pain. Hand in hand, with a sense of power I'd not felt before, not that I could remember.