Chapter 8: Aiden

“Give me your phone and your money,” the man in front of me demands. “Now!” He's big, sure, all three are. They look no older than twenty, all tall, all well muscled and all, from the smell, entirely human. I might look small and lightly built, but I am a werewolf and I am stronger than any human. Stronger, faster, tougher and much quicker to heal. That little knife is no better against me than a water pistol.

I can't help myself. I burst out laughing.

“Give me the f***ing phone and money!” the guy repeats, grabbing for me and stabbing with his knife. He may as well have been moving in slow motion. I grab his knife hand with my own and squeeze until I hear the bones crack. Frost surges forward, howling his eagerness, throwing his weight behind my fist as it slams into the guy's jaw and sends him flying. Both the other men are lunging for me. I drop into a crouch on my toes, grinning gleefully as they end up tackling each other. I dance out from between them, spinning swiftly so I can grab the backs of their heads and help them continue on their forward path. Their heads crash together like cymbals and they crumple to the ground.

To any human watching it must all seem to happen in the blink of an eye: three men close on one smaller figure and a moment later all three men are on the ground. I prod one with the toe of my battered Converse. Frost is hoping they still have some fight left in them, but they all seem to be out cold.

I realise then that I probably have an audience. When I look around, though, everybody seems to be ignoring us. That doesn't say good things for the chances of anyone who couldn't protect themselves from muggers. I wonder if I should report this, but if London cops are anything like the cops back home, they won't be interested. I pull off my pack instead and fish out a marker pen. Then I push back the sleeve of the guy whose hand I broke.

“IF YOU DO THAT AGAIN,” I write along his forearm in block letters, “YOU WILL GET WORSE THAN A BROKEN HAND AND JAW. I WILL FIND YOU AND I WILL PUNISH YOU.” I wonder how well he reads. Pushing up his other sleeve as well, I draw him a little cartoon strip of the failed mugging, and finish it with a generic-figure-that-could-be-me-or-could-be-anyone- pointing at its eyes, pointing at him, the gesture for 'I'm watching you.'

I don't sign my artwork. No sense giving them anything they could use against me.

We still seem to be invisible to the passes-by, even though they have to step into the road to go around us. I put back my marker and shoulder my bag again. The incident has put both Frost and myself in a good mood, but now we are running late and I need to go register at the college. It's not a long walk, but it still takes me twice the time to cover the distance than it would if I'd been back in the forest. The streets get more crowded the closer I get and it slows me down. It means that I end up near the back of the queue leading up to the entrance.

Like most of the buildings in London, the Grenville School of Art has been built upwards instead of outwards because there is no room to go outwards. It's made of greyish brick, converted from a residential building from the looks of it. The former house next door now holds a charity that helps people find accommodation and provides hardship payments to students in need. I should call there next, I think.

The queue shuffles forwards. There's a few students exchanging introductions and small talk. I listen without joining in. Most of what they're talking about isn't familiar to me. Soap operas, British pop music. the latest celebrity gossip, something called 'art films'. I finally reach the building, stepping into a long, thin reception area, and I find myself thinking, this place smells amazing! Sort of... earthy, resinous, slightly mossy. That makes it sound damp, but it isn't, not at all. I wonder if it's got something to do with painting materials, but I don't remember anything smelling like this. We're handed all sorts of leaflets and fliers as we continue to queue up to a table at the end of the hallway. There's a Freshers Fair in the first week, and most of the glossy stuff is an attempt to make the new students visit as many stands as possible when it opens. The number of clubs is bewildering. This is supposed to be a small college? I may have said that out loud, because one of the volunteers handing out leaflets explains that many of the London colleges share extra-curricular activities.

The scent's stronger as I finally reach the head of the queue. It's enticing and very distracting. I think it's emanating from beyond the doorway beside the table where the admissions secretary is sitting. It looks like an exhibition area or gallery beyond the door. The secretary sees I'm paying him less attention than the open door, 'though probably doesn't guess the right reason for it. Once I've given my name, been checked off and handed my student card and yet another package of papers and leaflets, he nods towards the gallery. “It's open just for the new students today. It's the graduation exhibition, so you can get an idea of the range of styles and techniques you will be studying during your course. The theme is 'Culture Shock'. You're welcome to browse.”

I step through the doorway, following my nose, but the smell remains frustratingly light. It's slightly stronger near a few of the art works, strong enough to be mouthwateringly delicious and absolutely entrancing. I find myself panting slightly and my pants growing uncomfortably tight. I adjust myself surreptitiously. What is happening to me? My entire being has become nothing but a slave to my nose. Frost is crowding forwards, urging me to seek, to find the source of the alluring scent.

Certainty begins to crystallise within me, because the presence is strongest around exactly the same pictures that speak most to me. I'd been told, of course, but nothing compares to experiencing it yourself The way you recognise the missing part of your whole, feel it in your blood and in your bones, know that this is what you have been missing all your life, the one thing you need to be complete. It is the scent of my mate. She was here....

...and now she is gone.