Page 80 of Of Fate and Phantoms
"Not anymore," Gawler said, his top lip lifting in a way that reminded me of a dog snarling. "Our pack broke apart."
"Why?" Harriet asked.
"There was a fight. Me and the pack leader." He hunched and tightened his arms around his chest, as if protecting his parcel of mutton bones. "I got tired of him telling us what to do, see. Tired of him making all the decisions, 'specially when he made the wrong one."
"But he won," I said heavily.
He sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. "He won."
"A fight?" Harriet whispered. "That sounds dangerous."
He pulled his jacket and shirt aside at the shoulder to reveal three ugly scars. I didn't need to ask to know they were made by a claw. So they'd fought in their animal form.
Beside me, Alice smothered a gasp.
Gawler covered the scars. "You're better off in your toff house," he said to Harriet. "It's dangerous out here, for regular humans and for our kind. You stay safe and pretty where you are and don't mix with us. You married to a human?"
Harriet nodded.
"Good. Breed it out, I say. One day, there'll be none of us left."
"Why would you want to do that?" I asked.
He tapped his scarred shoulder. "If our numbers grow, there'll be more fights. We males can't help it. Fighting is in our nature, but the humans will fear us if they see. They'll lock us away. I been locked away one night for being drunk, and that were enough for me. You put me in a cage forever and I'll die."
I understood completely. One night in a holding cell was enough for me, too. "Where's the rest of the pack now?" I asked. "With the leader?"
"He moved out to Bloomsbury." He hawked a glob of saliva onto the floor where the dirt and straw soaked it up. "The others still live in the East End."
"I don't understand. If he's the leader, why aren't they with him?"
"We don't live together, miss. We're friends, not mates. Not husband and wife. They see him at his house sometimes, or he visits them, and they run through the streets at night in their other form together."
"And you?" I asked quietly.
His top lip lifted again, revealing normal, human teeth. "I run alone."
"I'll run with you." Harriet spoke in a rush, as if afraid she'd change her mind if she thought it through first. "I'll be in your pack."
"Harriet," I warned.
Gawler shook his head. "Stay away from us. This ain't no life for you."
"But Iwantto run," she said. "I haven't run anywhere since I was a little girl, but I desperately want to. Sometimes I dream about racing through the fields on our estate, the wind tangling my hair, the earth beneath my feet. I imagine it to be liberating."
Gawler grunted. "You go and run in your fields where it's safe and no one can see." He nodded at Doyle, sitting on the driver's seat with the pistol in his lap. "It's dangerous for our kind, especially here where there's more witnesses. You stay away from us. Fromhim."
"The leader?" I asked.
He nodded.
"What's his name?"
"He likes to be called King."
Alice's hand tightened on my arm.
"I've known him since I were thirteen," Gawler said. "That's when he came to London. Don't know where from. We did everything together—played, laughed, even kissed the same girls. Running through the streets with King was liberating, like you say, ma'am. We felt like we ruled the East End. Hewasthe king, and I were the prince, I s'pose. Maybe that's why he called himself that." Gawler sounded like he missed him as any man would miss a friend after they were gone. I wondered if he regretted fighting for the leadership.
