The Big Bad Wolf Murder, page 1
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Content warning: This book is a work of fiction, but deals with real-life topics like murder, poisoning, animal attack and animal death, stalking, gambling (scene in casino), poverty, and prejudice.
FOR MY BROTHER‚ CHRIS
1
GAME TIME
Ruby was being hunted. The thrill of it ran through her veins like fire, making her skin prickle and her muscles tense as she darted from bush to bush. Their paper leaves tickled her face, and she paused to pluck a bright pink silk flower from one of them. It was soaked in perfumed oils, and she smiled as she rubbed it over her tracksuit.
Good luck tracking my scent now, she thought.
Nevertheless, she looked around, alert to any movement. Cartoon bluebirds smiled down at her from flat cardboard trees. And rising beyond the fake forest in every direction was the crowd, row upon row of people, watching in silence.
Fifty thousand spectators were crammed into the stands of Netherburg Stadium, but it seemed that every one of them was holding their breath. That told Ruby the danger was close—the hunter was closing in, and they were waiting for him to strike.
The soft hoot of a wood pigeon came from the trees behind her. Not daring to blink, she cupped her hands around her mouth and returned the call. A second later, a small figure in red stepped out from cover. It was her teammate, Akako—fifteen, with a compact, muscular frame, her black hair packed in a bun. She signaled to Ruby in a rapid series of hand gestures. Any sign?
Ruby signaled back. No, but—
She didn’t have time to react to the huge shadow that reared up behind Akako. Yellow eyes blazed in its depths, and with a flash of white teeth, two large gray-furred hands plucked Akako from her feet. In barely a second, she was gone.
Ruby turned and ran. The crowd leaped to their feet, roaring with excitement, but not even their combined voices could drown out the low, animal howl from the trees behind her.
She ran faster, vaulting onto a narrow balance beam across a water trap, then leaping to grab a rope that hung from a nearby tree. She swung across a web of netting spread on the ground to trip the unwary, dropped, rolled, and burst out of the forest into a circular clearing.
“Ruby!” The team captain, Roselyn, was waiting for her. Even in the middle of a game, she looked glamorous—eighteen years old, willowy, with ash-blond hair and an unflinching gaze. The exact opposite of Ruby, who was small, wiry, and pale, with black hair scraped back from a wide forehead. “Where is he?”
“Behind me,” Ruby panted, backing away from the tree line.
“And Akako?”
“Out,” said Ruby. “What about Voss?”
“He got her too,” said Roselyn. “But not before we both got our flags up.”
They reached the center of the clearing, where four flagpoles stood. Red flags flew from two of them. The others were bare.
“Mine makes three,” said Ruby, unfolding an identical flag from a pouch on her belt.
“I’ll raise it,” said Roselyn. “You keep watch.”
Ruby handed her the flag and turned to scan the trees. Nothing stirred, but she knew the hunter had to be close. He would be watching.
Three flags, she thought. We can still win this.
Tooth and Claw was a simple game. A team of four runners had to negotiate the arena’s obstacles, reach the clearing in the center, and raise their flags without being caught by the hunter. Five points for each flag raised, and five more for each player who made it back through the forest to safety. They needed only twenty points to win, and her flag gave them fifteen already. If she or Roselyn could escape the forest, the final five points were theirs, and so was the championship. The soles of her feet itched with anticipation.
“Any sign of him?” asked Roselyn as the flag reached the top of the pole. The crowd cheered wildly in support.
“None,” Ruby replied. “But he’s here. I know it.”
The two girls stood back-to-back, unblinking.
“We’ll split up,” said Roselyn. “He can only catch one of us.”
“I’ll go north,” said Ruby.
“I’ll take south,” said Roselyn. “On three. One…”
“Three!” yelled Ruby, sprinting for the underbrush. She dismissed the faint twinge of guilt at not waiting for Roselyn’s countdown—the scoring line was out there, just out of sight. But so was the hunter, and even as she took her first steps, some instinct warned her that she was heading into a trap. She veered hard right, now running east. At the same instant, a huge shaggy shape erupted from the bushes to the north, fangs bared. She felt its claws brush the back of her ponytail as it sailed past her. She powered on, not daring to look back.
As she reached the cover of the trees, she heard Roselyn scream. Then came that terrible howl again, and another almighty cheer from the crowd.
Five points left, she thought as the blood hammered in her ears. I have to do this.
She was the last player standing. The hunter was on her tail, but she had a head start. That would be enough as long as nothing—
Her foot caught on a hidden trip wire, and she landed flat on her face. Panic squeezed the breath from her lungs, and she rolled to one side an instant before the hunter surged past in a whirl of teeth and claws.
The crowd fell silent again as Ruby sprang to her feet and came face-to-face with him. The big bad wolf.
He padded back and forth on all fours, as large as a lion, his muzzle dripping saliva and his yellow eyes gleaming with triumph.
“Hello again, Ruby.” His voice was as deep and thick as mud.
“Alarick,” she replied. “Looks like it’s just you and me.”
He reared onto his hind legs, seven feet of muscle wrapped in salt-and-pepper fur. “The best of the best,” he said. “That’s why I saved you until last.”
“You didn’t save me for anything,” she shot back. “I’m just too quick for you.”
He smiled, revealing more long, curved teeth. “We’ll see.”
The edge of the arena was barely twenty yards behind him. So close! Ruby feinted left, darted right, but he dropped to all fours again, flowing as quick and smooth as oil to block her. He snapped his jaws and laughed.
“Too obvious,” he said. “Try again.”
Her frustration sparked into anger—he was toying with her. “I meant what I told you earlier,” she said. “I’m going to win this. For Marceline.”
His smile faded. “She doesn’t need you to settle her old scores.” He raised his head to survey the crowd for an instant, and Ruby wondered if this was her chance to slip around him. But he was cunning, and she knew this was almost certainly a trick.
Sure enough, the moment passed and he locked eyes with her again. “Give me your best shot,” he said. “It’s time to pay my dues.”
A growl built in his throat, and Ruby dropped into a sprinter’s crouch. This was it. Alarick would lunge and she would spring clear. But which way? Get it right, and she could reach safety before he had time to turn and catch her. Get it wrong, and the five points went up in smoke.
She tensed … but the attack never came. Instead, Alarick’s growl turned into a wet gurgle, and he put his paws to his throat. Was this another trick? “Just come at me,” she snapped.
He didn’t answer but reared up again, staggering from side to side. The watching crowd gave a murmur of disquiet.
Ruby made up her mind and bolted, expecting Alarick’s paws to close around her at any second. When they didn’t, she risked a look back. He turned to her with wide, desperate eyes. She stumbled to a halt.
“Alarick?”
With a last, choking cough, he toppled onto his back.
Ruby stood, frozen in shock until a trio of medics—two humans, one wolf—hurried past her. She stumbled after them as they set about checking Alarick’s pulse, shining a penlight into his eyes, and starting chest compressions.
This couldn’t be happening. She had spent months—years!—training to beat Alarick. And here he was, staring blindly at the sky as a trail of white foam oozed from his maw onto the turf.
“Is he all right?” she asked, realizing what a silly question it was as soon as she said it. She didn’t need the chief medic’s weary shake of the head to know the answer. Alarick was dead.
2
LOCKER-ROOM TALK
Ruby’s teammates swarmed her the second she stepped into the locker room.
“Is it true?” said Voss. She was stocky and square, her wavy red hair flopping into her face as she bounced nervously from foot to foot. “Is Alarick really…?”
“He can’t be,” said Akako, throwing a supportive arm around Ruby. “What happened out there, Rubes?”
Ruby tri
“Never mind Alarick,” she said. “Did you get the points?”
Ruby blinked in shock, then shook her head.
“What?” Roselyn threw her hands up. “You had a clear run to the boundary!”
“I know!” Ruby replied. “And I was almost there, but then Alarick…” She remembered the look in the wolf’s eyes as he’d collapsed. He had looked scared. “I had to turn back.”
“Alarick’s the enemy,” said Roselyn. “We’ve been training all year to beat him—to humiliate him!—and you blew it.”
“Go easy, Ros,” said Akako, only to be silenced by a warning glare.
Ruby’s anger flared. “I hated him as much as you did, but that’s not the same as wanting him dead.” She turned to Voss for support, but her teammate refused to make eye contact.
“The win comes first,” said Roselyn. “At any cost.”
Undaunted, Ruby puffed out her chest. “Maybe you could have won the points if you hadn’t been caught.” It was only when a chill silence descended on the group that she realized she had said the wrong thing.
“He caught me too,” said Akako.
“And me,” said Voss.
Ruby dropped her gaze to the floor, feeling very alone.
All four girls leaped to attention as they heard a rapid tump-tump-tump approaching from the corridor outside. When the door burst open a second later, they were standing in line, eyes dead ahead, expressions neutral.
“Rumors are spreading already.” Marceline, their coach, limped in, surveying them sharply. “I’m here to give you the facts. Alarick’s dead.”
Ruby remained ramrod straight as Marceline approached her, leaning heavily on her cane. Their coach was an intimidating figure—tall and broad-shouldered, with a face so hard and a nose so straight it looked as if it could cut through sheet ice. The only part of her that didn’t look as if it had been forged from steel was her right leg, which was several inches shorter than her left, and badly withered.
“You were there, Ruby,” she said. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” said Ruby. “It was so sudden.”
“But he must have done something. Said something.”
“Nothing,” Ruby replied. “He just grabbed at his throat and fell over. I don’t think he could breathe.”
For a second, Ruby thought she saw her coach’s lip tremble, but that was ridiculous. Marceline had hated Alarick more than anyone. Maybe she was going to cry tears of joy? But no. Marceline clenched her jaw and the moment passed.
“Hit the showers,” she said. “The game’s canceled.”
“But it’s the final!” said Roselyn. “They can’t!”
“They can and they have,” said Marceline. “The judges have ruled no contest. Nobody wins.”
“Can’t we play someone else?” said Akako. “We’ve all worked so hard for this.”
“Enough!” roared Marceline, her face turning as red as her team jersey. “I want all four of you washed and presentable in fifteen minutes. People are going to have lots of questions for you.”
“Who?” asked Voss.
“The press,” said Marceline. “Lawyers. The police. I don’t know. But something went wrong and you girls were out there when it happened.”
The team slouched to their lockers in nervous silence. Ruby knew what they were all thinking, because she was thinking it herself. What had killed Alarick? Close behind it was another, more worrying thought: Would people suspect her of playing a part in it?
Of course not, she told herself. You didn’t do anything.
But what if someone else had?
She was so lost in thought that it took her three attempts at opening her locker before she remembered that the catch was broken, and the locker unusable. She’d had to borrow Marceline’s instead. She made her way to it, pulled out her sports bag, and unzipped it.
She was surprised to find a glass bottle she didn’t recognize resting on the hooded top of her spare tracksuit. It was half-full with a bright yellow powder, and when she picked it up she saw a skull and crossbones stamped on the lid. The words LUPIX VENENUM were emblazoned on the label.
“What’s this?” she wondered out loud.
The others were too preoccupied to notice. She shook the bottle and watched the powder swirl around inside. It was so fine that it flowed like dust.
She was still examining it, perplexed, when the locker-room door burst open and four men charged in. They wore the teal uniforms and peaked caps of the Netherburg City Police Department, and their compact, gas-powered crossbows were raised.
Voss and Akako screamed, and Roselyn snatched up her sports bag, ready to swing it like a club.
“How dare you?” roared Marceline. “You can’t be in here!” She advanced on the nearest officer, who fell back a step under her searing gaze.
“Yes, we can,” said a voice that made the officers stand a little straighter. A large man strode into the room, dressed in a long coat and a baggy brown suit with a yellowed shirt. “Detective Breck, NCPD.”
“I don’t care who you are,” said Marceline. “What are you doing here?”
Breck ran a hand over his graying crew cut and surveyed the room until his eyes fell on Ruby and the bottle. “Someone get that.”
An officer hurried over, tore the bottle from Ruby’s grasp, and tossed it to Breck.
“Lupix Venenum,” said Breck. “Just as I thought. Grab her.”
“Hey!” Ruby struggled as two officers caught her by the wrists. “What are you doing?”
“Arresting you,” said Breck. “For the murder of Alarick.”
3
THREE HOURS EARLIER
“We’re so proud of you, darling.”
Ruby tried not to squirm as her mother licked a thumb and rubbed yet another imaginary blemish from Ruby’s forehead. Her father, meanwhile, hovered beside her like a ghost, unsure of where to put himself.
“I’m fine, Mom. Please.”
“We need you looking your best. Imagine what people would say if they saw you in the papers with a dirty face.”
“It’s Tooth and Claw, Mom. I’m going to be filthy by the end of the game.”
Her mother licked her thumb again and scanned Ruby’s face for another target. “All the more reason to have you spick-and-span now. Isn’t that right, Harold?”
Ruby’s dad clapped her on the shoulder. “Well done, sport.”
Ruby took some comfort from the fact that she wasn’t suffering alone. Voss was roughhousing with her older brothers, while Akako was lost in a scrum of aunts, uncles, cousins, and what appeared to be assorted friends and neighbors, all offering opinions on her hair, her posture, and whether red was really her color. Even Roselyn’s parents, stiff and elegant in their formal wear, were fussing with the cut of her tracksuit. Between them, the four families completely blocked the corridor outside the stadium’s pressroom, and Ruby wondered whether the reporters inside could hear all of it. Maybe they were already writing it all down for this evening’s papers.
“Where are my girls?”
With a huge sense of relief, Ruby saw Marceline cutting through the crowd like a ship through choppy waters. Everyone fell silent. Not even Akako’s aunts wanted to get on the wrong side of Marceline.
“We’re ready, Coach,” said Roselyn, snapping to attention. Ruby, Akako, and Voss followed suit.
“Good.” Marceline surveyed the families with satisfaction. “Thank you all for trusting me with them. I promise to give them back in one piece.” She allowed herself a tight little smile. “With the trophy.”
The corridor erupted into cheers, and Ruby and her teammates exchanged excited looks. They were finally here—at the Tooth and Claw championship final.
For months, every minute of their lives outside school had been spent in the makeshift gym that Marceline had set up in a converted garage. Sprints, squats, push-ups, backflips, balance beams, standing jumps … it had been grueling, but it forged them into a team and propelled them through the elimination rounds, the quarters, and a nail-biter of a semi. Now the cup was within reach.
