“Reckon I might as well do what I said,” she told them. “Be careful, yeah?”
Merlin and Vivien nodded. Merlin quickly put his suitcase in the back, threw his ballistic vest and the empty sword scabbard on top of the suitcase, and climbed into the driver’s seat, putting his yak-hair bag down next to him for easy access to his revolver. Vivien got in the back and sat in the middle, to make it easier to talk through the hatch in the partition.
Audrey pretended to do a double take at Merlin taking the driver’s seat, but didn’t put much effort into it before wandering towards Almeida Passage, lighting up a cigarette again as she walked away
“So have you got a plan?” Vivien asked Merlin, leaning forward to talk through the partition. “Like how we are actually going to find Susan?”
“No, apart from presuming you have one,” replied Merlin. “You do, don’t you? I saw it on your face when I was talking to Una.”
He took advantage of the cab’s incredible turning circle to do a U-turn across the mouth of the square, narrowly missing yet another police Rover 3500 that was accelerating through the twenty yards from the barricade as if they were first on the scene and seconds mattered. “I guess that is my plan, come to think of it. For you to have a plan. So come on.”
“The sword was firmly stuck in the wounded Fenris?”
“Yes.”
“So wherever the sword is, the Fenris will also be there, and—at least until she’s delivered or collected—Susan.”
“Yes.”
“So find the sword, find the wolf, find Susan. And cold iron—and that sword in particular—will slow the wolf, so we’ll have a better chance of catching up.”
“Yes . . . but . . . how do we find the sword?”
Vivien held up the scabbard so Merlin could see it in his rearview mirror. He started and swerved slightly, alarming the police officers at the barricade, who moved it out of the way a lot faster. Merlin waved at them guiltily.
“Of course. I forgot. Um, how does it work again?”
“Did you ever know?”
“Uh, no, actually,” replied Merlin, swinging the cab into Theberton Street.
Vivien laid the scabbard across her knees and took off her glove. Her right hand was bright in the dim cabin, but she covered it with her left, resting them both on the scabbard. Very slowly, she inhaled for a good twenty seconds, held her breath for at least a minute, then exhaled as slowly.
“The sword is moving swiftly; it must still be in the wolf,” she said. She thought for a moment. “But not as swiftly as it might; the iron must already be affecting the Fenris. It’s about thirty miles nor’-nor’-west now. Take the A1 and pass Audrey’s road atlas back here. Not the A–Z, I saw a proper whole of Britain one—yes, that’s it.”
“What do we do once we retrieve Susan? If we can?” asked Merlin.
“I don’t know,” replied Vivien. “I don’t know. . . .”
Chapter Fifteen
O! Wolf of ravening jaw and fix’d eye
Stay thy slaughter, if thou will
I never wish’d thee any ill
No! Never hop’d that thou wouldst die
Come! Good Canis, by my hearth lie
THE WOLF’S LOPE GREW EASIER AS THEY REACHED THE M1 AND IT USED the hard shoulder, streaking past the traffic on the inside, which meant it was running at a speed of at least eighty miles per hour. Susan slowly moved her wrists and feet backwards and forwards, hoping to loosen the bonds, since there was nothing to abrade the cords against. The wolf didn’t appear to notice, but as far as she could tell the movement had no effect on the cords.
She felt curiously calm about the fact she was held in a giant wolf’s maw and was being taken at high speed to some unknown destination. It was probably shock, she thought, though she didn’t think she’d been seriously hurt when the wolf first picked her up. Her back and shoulders were sore, and her neck and arms and legs ached, but not unbearably. She was a bit worried her circulation had been cut off, though she wasn’t tied as tightly as she’d first feared.
She had no idea how long it had been since the wolf had taken her up. Everything had happened so quickly at first, and now it was all so strange. She thought more than an hour, but then again, perhaps it was much longer?
“Plan ahead,” Susan whispered to herself. She’d had a stranger danger lecture at school more than once, but as that emphasized screaming and running away if someone tried to make you get in a car, it wasn’t a lot of help. She couldn’t remember any advice for when you were actually kidnapped. Stay calm, perhaps? That was the generic advice for everything at her school. Stay calm.
She was calm. Too calm. And the only thing she could think of doing was to keep slowly working her bonds, undoubtedly removing more skin than anything else. But if she could loosen them enough to get free, then she could do something when . . . if . . . the wolf spat her out or let her go. She’d have to be quick, because she was sure there would be someone waiting for her at the other end.
The wolf had been sent by someone, as the goblins had been, and the men who had been killed in order to break the wards. Someone from the Old World who could also command the criminal underworld of the New.
Susan thought about that. Wards that could be bypassed by spilling human blood on them didn’t seem very useful. But from what Merlin and Vivien had said, the Old World and the New didn’t have much contact as a rule, so killing mortals to break wards must be a very unusual occurrence.
“Oh my god!” she exclaimed, reflexively lifting her head and tensing her body, enough to make the wolf tighten its jaws. “There must have been someone or something else there to kill those people! Merlin said goblins
