The police officer raised a hand and Fred was ushered over. ‘Which clan are these idiots from?’ he asked urgently.
‘We don’t know.’
‘Has anyone spoken to the alphas?’
‘Nope.’
‘Do we know their ranks?’
I smiled slightly. ‘No.’ I passed him my phone. ‘Get onto all four clan alphas straight away. Find out who these idiots are and which bastard ordered them to create this kind of havoc.’ I paused. ‘Start with Lady Sullivan.’
While I was currently on speaking terms with the Sullivan clan alpha, she was the most reckless. She’d once even tried to have me killed so she could examine my resurrections for herself. I guessed that she was the likeliest candidate for this kind of tomfoolery. If she’d sanctioned this attack, then her days were numbered. The public tolerated the supernatural community as long as they kept to their corner of London and didn’t bother everyone else. Hijacking a damned tourist bus was not in that remit.
‘What are you going to do?’ Fred asked.
I bared my teeth in a nasty grin. ‘I’ll get closer and try to talk to these numbskulls,’ I said. ‘If they’re low-ranking enough, I might manage to compel them to back down.’ I crossed my fingers. It would be good to end this farce without any shots being fired.
I held my crossbow loosely at my side to indicate that I wouldn’t aim or fire unless I had to, then I moved slowly towards the bus. Every eye was on me – and probably several cameras too. I didn’t think about them as I focused on the bus. I could make out the flickering shapes of a few shadows inside, and every few moments a head bobbed up to stare at me. Judging by the long ears, the wolves were still in animal form.
When I reached the first armed officer, he pointed at a megaphone. I considered it for a moment then picked it up. ‘This is Detective Constable Emma Bellamy,’ my voice boomed out across the bridge. ‘You know who I am. You will stand down, return to human form and leave the bus immediately.’
Every word thrummed with power and I could feel the compulsion I’d injected into my command reverberating through my body. I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed that the megaphone amplified my power as well as my voice. I couldn’t always compel supes to do my bidding; usually I needed their real names to boost my power and force them to my will. However, if the supes were weak enough, I could do it without their names.
I held my breath and waited, hoping that I’d done enough. When there was no immediate response from inside the bus, I cursed under my breath. Okay. If the mountain wouldn’t come to Mahomet, Mahomet would go to the mountain.
I dropped the megaphone and walked forward. I was getting onto that bus.
‘DC Bellamy!’ one of the armed officers hissed. I glanced at him. ‘Protocol demands that no move is made to approach a hijacked vehicle until all other avenues have been explored.’
‘That protocol is for humans,’ I replied, ‘not for werewolves. Waiting them out might work in other circumstances, but wolves will react positively to a show of strength, not patience.’ I gave him a look. ‘You called me here for a reason. I know what I’m doing, trust me.’ Then I continued walking towards the bus.
I’d barely covered ten feet when there was a flurry of movement behind the grubby windows. I stopped. Excellent. I waited two beats, then the bus door opened. But the person who stepped out, fear written all over his face, wasn’t a wolf.
‘Don’t shoot!’ he yelled in what sounded like a Kiwi accent. ‘Please don’t shoot!’ He stumbled forward onto the road and the bus door closed again.
My eyes narrowed.
‘Put your hands on your head!’ shouted the same officer who’d tried to stop me.
The man did as he was told and staggered forward, his face paper white. I checked his clothes: khaki shorts, sandals and the bulge of a money belt round his waist. He was definitely a tourist. As soon as he reached the first police car about fifty metres from the bus, he gasped. One of the armed officers sprang up, grabbed him and hauled him behind the car.
I wasted no time in joining them and the three of us crouched behind the car. The officer took up position again, the muzzle of his government-issue gun pointing at the bus. I focused on the escapee. He was wheezing and his eyes were writhing wildly with panic.
I placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Breathe,’ I commanded. ‘In.’ He heaved in a breath. ‘Out.’ He gasped. ‘In. Out.’
He did as he was told. His body shaking beneath my hand but slowly the tremors started to subside. ‘You’re safe now,’ I said. Then my voice hardened. I needed him to talk. ‘Tell me what’s going on inside that bus.’
‘Three,’ he said. ‘Three werewolves.’
‘Did you see them transform? Did you see what they looked like before they turned?’
He shook his head. ‘I was upstairs – we all were. They must have changed before they came up top. I didn’t see them when they got on board.’ He reached into his pocket with a shaking hand and held out a sheet of paper. There was a message scrawled messy handwriting.
I read it aloud: ‘We have six hostages. Stay back or we will eat them. We will present our demands in one hour. Be ready.’ I frowned and looked at the man. ‘One of the wolves wrote this?’
‘I…’ The man looked at me helplessly. ‘I think so. One of them gave it to me and shoved me out of the door.’
No werewolf in animal form could write; their paws didn’t allow for that sort of dexterity. ‘They’re still all wolves?’
‘Huh?’
‘They’re still furry?’
He looked confused. ‘Yes.’
They could have prepared the note before they got on board, but how would they have known how many hostages they’d end up with? Buses like this one were hop-on and hop-off, so sometimes they were empty and sometimes every seat was filled. It didn’t compute. And I’d never heard of a werewolf wanting to eat a human. All the ones I knew preferred burgers, usually with lashings of tomato ketchup.
I scratched my head. First that vampire on the London Eye and now this. ‘Describe them to me. Describe the wolves.’
He stared at me like he didn’t understand the question. ‘They have brown fur. And big teeth. And they smell musty.’
Musty? I frowned.
‘One of them had blue eyes,’ the man supplied helpfully.
My body tensed. Werewolf eyes changed colour to yellow or occasionally green when their bodies transformed. Never blue.
‘Cavalry’s here,’ I heard someone mutter.
I glanced back and saw Fred at the far end of the bridge. Four identical black cars had pulled up – the alphas had arrived. The doors opened and the familiar figures of Lady Sullivan, Lady Carr, Lord McGuigan and Lord Fairfax stepped out. They were too far away for me to decipher their expressions, but they were all standing stiffly and staring at the bus.
I abandoned the man, stood up and marched towards them. Fred was already trying to talk to them but they were paying him little attention. Their focus was on the bus.
‘Those cannot be my wolves,’ Lady Sullivan said as I approached.
‘Well, they’re not from my clan,’ Fairfax snapped.