“Ach! Excuse me.” He took a napkin and wiped the outside of the cup. But as he did so, Coll noticed something odd. Ruprecht was still smiling and chatting, but his hands were trembling. His forehead was faintly shiny with sweat. The man Samson stayed where he was, with his back to the door.
And suddenly – but, oh, too late, far too late – Coll realised that the faint click had been the lock turning.
“Now, then,” said the mayor, holding out the cup. He smiled again, with a glint in his eye. “Drink your tea.”
Mayor Ruprecht offered the cup of tea to Coll and smiled.
“Here,” he said. “While we wait.”
Behind him, Samson, the man in the brown coat, said nothing. Coll looked at the cup rattling on its tiny saucer.
We are Wolf. He heard Alpha’s voice. If you admit weakness, your allies will turn on you, your enemies will strike.
“Thank you,” he said, and took it.
The door was blocked and locked. The windows were closed. Coll might be big for his age, but these were two grown men. He was trapped. He wondered whether Ruprecht had even recalled the scouts, but guessed he probably had. He’d want to make sure Wolf wasn’t nearby. He’d want to make sure Cub really was weak. He’d even asked as much – do you have any way to protect yourselves? – and Coll had told him! Stupid!
The mayor watched him carefully. Coll lifted the cup to his lips and pretended to take a sip. Was it drugged? It hardly even mattered. There was no way he could get through the door with Samson there. And what were the mayor’s people doing now? Closing in on Cub perhaps. Fooling Rieka, like they’d fooled him? Luring them inside? Coll tried to imagine what Alpha would do. But Alpha wouldn’t have walked in unprotected. Alpha wouldn’t have shown weakness. And Alpha wasn’t here. So: never mind what Alpha would do – what would he do?
Coll rubbed his knee. “Sorry,” he said, putting the cup down. “My, ah, leg, you know? It gets stiff.”
He stood slowly and limped round his chair, making a show of stretching. Mayor Ruprecht smiled wide and his teeth gleamed. “Quite all right, my boy,” he said. “Make yourself comfortable, please.”
“So your scouts saw Wolf, you think?” asked Coll casually.
“Certainly, certainly.”
“But you don’t know where.”
The mayor said nothing. Behind him, Samson pulled his coat back a little and casually rested one hand on his knife.
“Sorry,” said Coll again, shaking his head. “I’m a bit woozy suddenly.”
The mayor’s smile grew even wider. “Sit,” he said softly. “Take a rest.”
“Yes,” murmured Coll. “Yes…”
He tipped forward, resting his hands on the back of the chair. Then, in one movement, he swung as hard as he could and heaved the chair at the back window. The chair collided with the glass with a huge smash, opening a jagged hole and taking some of the window frame with it. Without even pausing, Coll charged towards the hole.
“Stop him!” shouted Ruprecht. Samson ran forward, but Coll reached the window first. Shards of glass pointed up like teeth. Coll leapt, covered his face with his arms, curled up into a ball—
—and was out.
Glass splinters flew about him as he tumbled to the ground. He rolled and scrambled to his feet, looking around wildly, and realised he was on the main street. Startled townsfolk stared at him. He turned and saw Samson clambering through the window frame and, behind him, Mayor Ruprecht, red-faced and furious.
“Get him!” shouted the mayor, pointing. “Get the boy!”
When Coll turned back, the crowd was hostile. It surged forward and Coll backed away, but the street was too full of people and he had no idea where to go. An old lady in a grey shawl looked astonished as he bumped into her. Then she whacked him hard with her walking cane.
“Ow!” he yelped. He shoved her away and bounced against the next person. It was the girl he’d seen before, the one who’d attacked Fillan. She’d looked mean then – now she was feral, reaching out for him with sharp bony fingers.
“He has a Construct!” shouted the mayor. “If we get him; we get it! Catch him!”
Coll pushed away from the main street and down into narrow lanes, driving himself on. He spun round a corner and another without thinking, trying to create a gap between him and the crowd.
“There he is!” shouted a voice, and someone appeared ahead of him, a large woman surrounded by tiny children. She was holding a rolling pin and blocking the way. Coll staggered to a halt, tripped, slid and crashed into her legs, and she stumbled and fell.
“C’mere, you rat!” she shouted, swinging the rolling pin. Coll lurched back to his feet and kept running. His breath whistled with every step and his lungs ached, and he could hear the mob behind him. Part of him was still screaming that this made no sense – Scatter was a Wolf town; it was loyal to Wolf! He was Wolf! But the baying, screeching roars told him all he needed to know.
Through a vegetable patch, over a fence, scrabbling up to the top of a wall and running along for five desperate steps, on to a flat roof, down into a garden, through a doorway into one of the houses, past an astonished-looking man holding an armful of laundry, leaping through the open window, and on, and on…
And suddenly he was at the stockade wall at the southern edge of the town. A set of steps climbed to a platform near the top, and Coll scrambled upwards, trying to ignore the sounds of pursuit and how close they were – they might grab him at any time. He could feel their breath on the back of his neck; he was too late, too late—
He reached the platform and peered over. On the other side was a drop of three metres, perhaps more. Coll swallowed and squeezed between the sharpened spikes. He hung for a moment, staring down at the drop…
“GOTCHA!”
A hand clamped down on his arm and Coll yelped and looked up. Samson was there, grinning with glee. He reached for Coll’s other arm, but Coll swung away and hung from the man’s grip. Desperately he tried to wriggle loose, but the man held tight. He tried punching Samson’s arm with his free hand, but Samson hardly seemed to notice.
“Boss, I got him!” he shouted.
The man’s fingers were like iron round the metal of Coll’s left arm, and Coll’s elbow twanged unpleasantly as the prosthetic sent strange twisting signals to his stump. He remembered the feeling. It had happened before, hadn’t it?
He suddenly remembered Rieka saying, There’s a weak point. Back on Wolf, after the fight with Raven. After his arm had malfunctioned. A weak point…
Coll swung again, twisting against the arm. How had he triggered it before? Like this? Higher?
