can get freaking laid later on. Prick.”
Alex appeared by my shoulder. “Where’s Wold?”
“Gone.”
“His Lord Shiftiness?”
“He’s gone too.”
“Ah. What do we do now?”
I was still staring down the street in the direction of Corrigan and his new ‘friend’.
“Mack Attack? What do we do now?”
I chewed my lip. Fine. Corrigan could go off and live his life how ever he saw fit. I was going to do my job, preferably without the interference from the furry ones this time. “We’re going to see if we can’t get hold of a lot of money so that we can get make some weapons of necromancing destruction.”
Alex beamed. “Cool. You don’t need him anyway, Mack Attack.”
“Damn straight.” A sudden rip of roaring bloodfire lit through my chest. I ignored it. At least my headache seemed to have finally dissipated. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Five
On our return journey, I filled Alex in on what had transpired before he’d arrived. He was suitably appalled.
“Sheesh, Mack Attack. And they’d been told not to let you near the place? What in the Founder’s name was the Lord Alpha doing?”
I desperately wanted to give Corrigan the benefit of the doubt, despite the fact I was still smarting from the revelation of his new lady friend. “He’d said that it was on Staines’ orders, not his.”
Alex sucked in air through his teeth. “Staines? The bear? Why would he do that though?”
I couldn’t think of any reason that made any sense. I tried to rationalise it. “Maybe he was afraid I’d go in all guns blazing and temper flying, and scare her off.”
“Except they were the ones trying to torture her.”
“Yeah.”
“Does he want the credit of hunting down the necromancer dude for himself?”
“I don’t like the guy, but he’s never struck me as a glory hound. I just don’t get it,” I said, frustratedly.
“You could call him and ask. He’s on the council, isn’t he?”
“I could but…” my voice trailed off.
“What?” prompted Alex.
“I’ll lose my temper again. I need to try to act more responsibly if this council is ever going to work. I can’t be the one flying off the handle at every moment.”
A grin spread across Alex’s face. “Is this the new improved Mack Attack that I’m seeing?”
I sighed deeply, the image of Corrigan and the blonde strolling off arm in arm still seared into my brain. “I gave up my shot at happiness when I took on this fucking job. The last thing I need to be doing now is screwing up the job itself.”
He patted my shoulder. “You’ll work it out.”
I wished I had his confidence. Before I could mull it over further, however, a voice came over the train tannoy, announcing that we were pulling into the next station. I tugged at Alex’s arm.
“Come on.”
He looked confused. “This isn’t your stop.”
“We’re taking a detour.”
The train whined as it came to a halt, and the pair of us stepped off onto the platform.
“Dude, this isn’t going to be, er…”
“Dangerous? “ I smirked slightly at his predictability. “No.”
We walked along, dodging the other commuters, and then emerging out into the late afternoon sun. Because we’d disembarked at King’s Cross, the streets were predictably busy. I began to hum to myself, a particularly tuneless creation that matched my melancholy mood. Alex sent me a sidelong glance, then started to snap his fingers at various intervals, speeding up as he went along, and forcing me to change my beat.
“Woohoowooooooh,” he sang, with even less musical dexterity than I was managing.
“Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhhhh,” I continued.
He injected a little skip into his step. “Beedebopdelooolah!”
A harried looking woman pushing a pram gave us a funny look. Alex beamed at her and linked my arm in his, pulling me along with him until the pair of us were both bounding down the pavement and singing at the top of our lungs. I directed him to the left and we continued down the street in the same manner, eventually coming to a halt in front of a large brown building that curved its way in both directions around the street corner.
I gave him a grateful look. “Thanks for that.”
He reached over and gave me a wrist jolting high five, then looked at where we were, raising his eyebrows. “Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital?”
I nodded.
“I know that bruise on your face is looking kind of dodgy, Mack Attack, but you’re not normally so keen to jump in to see a doctor.” A furrow creased his brow. “You’re not a child either.”
I grinned, and pulled him over to