“Then get me in safely, will you?”

He stared at me with what looked like collusive delight. “That I can promise you, Jake. You have my word on it.”

Operationally there wasn’t much to go over. I’d given him the Beddgelert location soon after arriving here and he’d prepared an Ordnance Survey map showing a half-mile radius around the spot where, a hundred and sixty-seven years ago, my life as a werewolf began. I was to stay within it. The bodyguard wasn’t going with me to Wales. Ellis thought there was a good chance Grainer would put surveillance of his own in the area once I’d made the call: A glimpse (or word) of me in the company of WOCOP personnel and he’d know something was afoot. The climate of paranoia was extreme. Therefore Thursday morning a private car would pick me up and drive me, alone, directly to Caernarfon. Yes, I’d be exposed for a few hours at the hotel, but it was unavoidable. Ellis himself would be with Grainer.

“He’ll want you there?” I asked.

“He’s always said I’d be with him. I think he wants a witness. You have to understand, this is his whole life. The culmination.”

Mentally there was much going on. Chiefly file-rifling for who I’d need to contact and how to move the requisite fees fast, whether I’d be able to get past the phone and room taps at the Castle, but also stubborn currents of doubt that Ellis really had it in him to murder his mentor. Pointless currents of doubt. There was no other way to get to Talulla.

“Here’s the Marylebone office number,” Ellis said. “Wednesday, nine a.m. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He turned for the door.

“Ellis?”

“Yeah?”

“Is she really all right? I mean, no one’s done anything to her?”

He looked at me again. For a moment all veils fell and I could see what he really thought: that I’d been weakened, that in some fundamental way I’d let him down. As of course had Grainer. As of course had his mother before that. He was, I now realised, the most singularly alone human being I’d ever encountered. In the purified moment between us I saw his future, the rise to despotism, isolation, eventual madness, most likely suicide. All without love. We both saw it. And as if the universe was invested in proving there was no end to the perverseness of the heart (even the werewolf heart), I felt a flicker of pity for him. He felt it too—and in a reflex of terror shut it out.

“She’s fine, Jake,” he said. “She’s cool. I promise you. Stop worrying. You okay for supplies here?”•

It’s three in the morning. The night-shift boys are at the nadir of their boredom. The fire in the hearth is low, hissed into occasionally by rain coming down the chimney. For days now I’ve been circling my predicament—our predicament, mine and Talulla’s—trying to will a better way out of it. There isn’t one. It’s a relief to accept it, finally. In thirty hours, with a prayer to the God who isn’t there, I’ll make the call to the Marylebone office.

50

THE BLOOD ON these pages is mine.

51

THIS MIGHT BE the last I write. If it is, I hope whoever finds this journal carries out my final wish (see inside front cover) and gets it to you, angel.

On Wednesday morning I made the call. Got the call back, from Grainer himself. The trick, I’d decided, was not to oversell it.

“Jacob,” he said. “I’m aghast.”

“I don’t want a conversation,” I said. “Friday moonrise. Have you got a pen and paper? Beddgelert forest, Snowdonia. OS Grid SH578488. You get what you wanted.”

“All things considered,” he said, “it’s really the only fitting—”

I hung up.

The day was a churning and excessively detailed nightmare. It rained, continuously, cold skirls blown and dashed by an icy wind. Brollies dislocated. Car headlamps came on. A drain in Earl’s Court Road blocked and made an iridescent black lake. The Hunger was a long-nailed hand raking my insides from gullet to anus. Desire, too. Oh, yes. Plans to hatch and a lovesick heart to comfort were matters of indifference to the pre-Curse libido, which, having reached apotheosis with Talulla last full moon was making it clear it would never again settle for less. I had to watch the booze, too, though by Wednesday evening the last of Harley’s Macallan was gone. Diminishing anaesthetic returns. I hadn’t left these rooms for more than two weeks. Perhaps a little craziness was setting in, but I was convinced I could feel Lula reaching out telepathically. Maddeningly just on the edge of clarity. I’d asked Ellis to let her call me but he’d claimed it was out of his hands. Said he’d stuck his neck out as it was to get me the drive-by.

My own phone had been confiscated and Harley’s disconnected. I had no doubt the two I now had from Ellis were bugged and alarmed, but it was a ticklish trial to resist taking the chance. Every hour was an hour I could have spent getting the mercenary ball rolling. As it was I’d have to find a way of getting a clean line out from the Castle Hotel, which would be my only chance to act unwatched. I’ve had moral offsetting recourse to hired guns before. I used them against the Fascists in Spain, the Nazis in occupied France, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the death squads in El Salvador, most recently against government forces and Janjaweed militia in Darfur—and in every instance absolutely nothing moves without money. A lot, up front. I have half a dozen SCOAs (Security Codes Only Accounts) in Swiss banks but even with my access and contacts setting up an operation in less than twelve hours would be a trip to the border of insanity. But it was all I had. I’d never see Talulla again without getting into WOCOP myself, and I’d never spring us without professional help from outside.

The vampires had other ideas.

Just after midnight I heard Russell outside the library door saying: “Andy? You reading me?” Pause. “Andy, come back.” Pause. Then loudly: “Andrew, put your twatting headset back on.”

Nothing.

“What’s going on?” I said.

Russell put his head round the door. “Sit tight in here,” he said. Then into his com: “Chris, I’m not getting anything from Andy. Go up there and check, will you?”

Andy was on roof duty. Chris on the floor immediately below him. Russell was on the library level with me, and fourth man Wazz (I hadn’t enquired into derivation) patrolled the ground floor. “Wazz? You copy all that? Yeah. Look lively.”