Author's Note: Well, it's quite good to be back after almost two years of absence. This first chapter might not be up to scratch because it's my first Discworld fanfiction and the first one in about a year and a half. My life's a bit hectic with exams just now but I'll try to get a new chapter out as frequently as I can, as well. But, you know, enjoy! DISCLAIMER: I do not own Discworld. I wish I did, but I don't. Gutted much?
Actually, I should warn you now that there'll be a reasonable amount of Carrot/Angua in this, because they don't get as much time in the books as they deserve. Don't worry though, it's not taking over the plot ;)
It was high summer in Ankh-Morpork, and the fires on the notorious river Ankh didn't help the heat, or the tourists who had taken it into their heads that a boat-tour of the city was a good idea (1). They were often seen walking across the river's viscous surface with look of shock on their faces instead of their eyebrows.
Trolls had resorted to staying inside with their heads in troughs of ice-cold water. In fact, the only trolls who weren't on sick leave, if you could called it that, were the trolls currently employed at the Pork Futures Warehouse, arranging vaguely transparent pig carcasses and taking advantage of the chilly environment. Sergeant Detritus of the City Watch was the exception to this case, as the fans in his helmet helped regulate his brain temperature, but even he was finding that he was a little slow to laugh at the office jokes. Well, slower than usual.
Perhaps among those not entirely enjoying the summer months were the fathers of female dwarfs. Having just accepted that they could never quaff with their newly-discovered daughter on a Friday night (or any other night of the week, actually), these dwarfs now found their daughters wearing what was called a… summer dress. It's wise to remember here that a female dwarf who maintains a beard, albeit a beard with ribbons in it, will not necessarily be bothered about shaving her legs, either. Fortunately for the taller population of Ankh-Morpork, their eyes never easily strayed close enough to the ground to see this, and nobody went out of their way to look, either.
The only place in Ankh-Morpork where summer hadn't taken over, it seemed, was the Shades. You still got a slight shiver in your spine when you crossed the boundary into the Shades, however much you might try and deny it. Women's clothes didn't get any skimpier, because it was harder to get much more revealing clothing with crossing a major line. And the numerous citizens in hooded cloaks still wore what they had worn in winter, because they weren't covering themselves up to keep the cold out.
On this particularly scorching afternoon, various members of the City Watch had taken refuge in Pseudopolis Yard, because they had opened the door to Igor's laboratory and it was, strangely, always cold down there. The dozen officers there had taken the opportunity to do their paperwork, and were, for the most part, keeping their head down and making traditional workplace conversation without actually looking up at each other.
There was a noise outside that sounded like a sploosh!
"What was the hell was that?" asked Sergeant Colon, jumping in his already worn out chair. That seat had lasted him 'damn near twenty years', and the legs would probably never be the same again, at least not without some serious welding. It was best not to mention the cushion. If you could still call it a cushion.
Simultaneously, both looking up from their paperwork briefly, Angua sniffed the air and Carrot leaned his chair back to peer out of the window. Both sergeant and captain bore the expression of mundane recognition.
"River's caught fire again," they said together, and returned to their reports.
"Third time this week," remarked Nobby Nobbs from his desk, which was further away from the other officers but much closer to the petty cash tin. He was the only one not doing paperwork, instead counting pennies on his desk, to make sure they came to under four dollars. "And it's only Tuesday."
Murmurs of agreement spread throughout the room, then there was silence for a few, blissfully cool, minutes.
"How do you spell dat word?" asked Detritus finally, after having been observed to struggle over his report for a significant while.
Several chewed pencils lay scattered on the floor as a result, leads and erasers littering the office. Troll teeth are diamond, so when they chew a pencil, they don't just make an indent.
"What word, sergeant?" asked Carrot, whose grasp of spelling was not much better than Detritus'.
"Got."
While Carrot explained, Angua sniffed the air again. "Commander's coming. I can smell the cigar smoke from here."
There was a clatter in the direction of Nobby's desk as he hurriedly attempted to replace the extra 21 pence he'd stolen from the big red tin in the corner.
The door swung open, and Vimes entered, up to his knees in what could only be described as thick, muddy water with a smell of rotting fish. He was carrying his sandals in his hand and one of his eyebrows had been singed off.
"Bloody tourists and their boat tours," he growled. "Carrot, don't you dare salute."
"Yessir!" The captain returned to his paperwork for a few moments, then came to an obvious decision and put his pencil down, continuing to look at Vimes.
"You were near the fire then, sir?"
"Near it? I was bloody in it! What was I supposed to do when the boat overturned and smashed into little pieces on the surface? Stand there?"
"Good point, sir."
Vimes threw his sandals into his own office and made a noise which didn't only suggest, but screamed that he wasn't happy. "I'm
going to take a shower."
He exited the room, but came back in because he'd sensed something.
"Someone's going to tell me why I can't take a shower, aren't they?" he glared accusingly at the room. There were a few moments of silcence before Nobby drew the mental short straw and was elected to speak.
"Well, because it's hot and the city can only buy in so much water-"
"-and the Patrician knows that if everyone's left to use as much water as they want there'll be none left-"
"-he says that no-one's to use more than allocated for their home or workplace-"
"-and Constable Bluejohn was very, very hot in the head this morning before we sent him home-"
"-we might have used quite a lot of ours cooling him down."
It was hard not to notice that the commander was breathing heavily.
"How much water," he began, very slowly, as certain officers' noses became dangerously close to their paperwork, "do we have left for today?"
Silence.
"abouthalfaglass," said Colon.
"What?"
Angua took over from Colon, whose face had grown even redder than its usual crimson. "About half a glass. Sorry, Commander."
He looked at her, and then at the room in general.
"I'm not waiting until tomorrow to get this sticky stuff off me," he announced, and then added inwardly, how can water be sticky, anyway?
He left.
There was another sploosh!
"The river?" ventured Constable Ping. Angua shook her head.
"Thorry," called Igor from his laboratory. "The fingerth are giving me trouble again. Ith just-"
Angua shut the door with her foot. "I don't care how hot it is, I'm not putting up with that."
Some time later, darkness fell. Not the summery-dusk kind of darkness, the real kind of darkness: the stuff so thick you could almost cut through it. It's inevitable that bad things happen on nights like this. It gets even more inevitable as you gravitate towards the Shades.
Gerald Sock was a postman, letter clutched in hand, with an intent to deliver. He had no deliveries in the Shades, save one. He walked briskly in the hope that it would deter any potential danger. If anything, it encouraged it. Walking briskly shows a lack of confidence, vulnerability. The best thing to do would have been to walk like he had all the time in world†, but unfortunately he didn't have much time left at all.
As he reached the alleyway, the growling began.
Vimes had taken a bath, and read to Young Sam. He had since taken another bath, after his son had wrinkled up his nose during the reading of the picture book. Naturally, because he was a toddler, Young Sam had only done this after the cow had been found.
He put his uniform back on, because the suit that Willikins had laid out for him would be ruined where he was going. And, well, it was a suit and Vimes much preferred the uniform. It was like an old friend, older than his own son. There were probably parts of it older than him, actually. Little scraps of metal here and there. The only thing he didn't put back on were his sandals, partly because they were still in his office (he'd walked home barefoot rather than re-enter the Watch House after a good storm-out) and partly because he didn't want to get his toes scorched off when he could have been wearing boots.
When he reached the dragon pen where Sybil was working, Vimes found her separating two scrapping dragons, squealing and snapping at each other.
"Sam! Just when I needed you," she beamed at him while a dragon writhed in each gloved hand, fighting against her grip. "Hold up that box for me, would you?"
Vimes stared around the pen. "What box?"
Sybil followed his gaze. "Oh. Bingle's sleeping on it. Give him a little nudge with your boot; you won't do him any harm."
With the caution of a man who's been told no harm can possibly come about as a result of his actions, Vimes gave the dragon the tiniest of kicks. Bingle rolled off the box and snorted in his sleep. A puff of smoke escaped each scaly nostril.
Vimes picked up the box and opened the flap in the side as instructed by Sybil. She rammed the biggest dragon inside it, snapping the door shut. The box rocked from side to side angrily in Vimes' arms.
"Won't he just flame his way out of there?"
"Yes, but it'll take him a few minutes, the silly little bugger."
Setting the smallest dragon back down and simultaneously taking the box from her husband's arms, Sybil tramped towards a much bigger pen, with freshly laid newspapers and an appetizing bundle of coal and placed the violently shaking box in the centre.
"Silly little bugger," she repeated again, shaking her head. "It's the heat, see. I'm sure I explained it all before. And the dogs' howling doesn't to them much good either. It sets the little ones off; they're always trying to be dogs for some reason. Don't do that, please, Sam."
Vimes had picked up a handy baby dragon and was rubbing it under the chin, with a cigar near to its mouth. It chirped happily and a blue flame shot out.
"Sorry, dear."
There was a pause while the couple listened to the howling, with occasional attempts to join in from the younger hatchlings.
"What is the matter with those dogs?" asked Sybil. "It's not even full moon. They're always a bit excitable around full moon."
Vimes frowned. Dogs were sensitive to sinister goings-on. If you were patrolling late at night and the strays seemed shifty, you always knew to draw your sword before turning the next corner. "Sounds like the Shades."
Sybil looked up at the moon. "Whatever it is, it sounds like trouble."
"Can you understand what they're saying?"
"I could if I wanted to, Carrot, but the howl that the dogs have developed isn't like the wolf one. It's full of information on where to find the best meat scraps in town."
"I suppose Gaspode introduced it back here, after he returned from Uberwald."
Angua considered this. "Perhaps."
The pair turned the corner of Elm Street. The duty of patrolling near the Shades seemed to fall to Angua and Carrot more than any other team, probably because there wasn't anything much in the Shades that could kill Angua and nothing much that would even attempt to kill Carrot.
"They seem very agitated-"
"Probably because the Assassin's Guild has stopped doing black pudding!" Angua listened for a mere second before continuing. "They are, as well! Talking about blood!"
Suddenly she stopped, paying attention to the noise of the dogs. Carrot knew better than to interrupt her while she was investigating, as it were, so he remained silent until she spoke again.
"I'm going to have to Change," she said, unbuckling her armour, "there's been an attack, further into the Shades, I think."
"Do you think it's serious?"
"No, I know it's serious," Angua said, while unbuckling her armour. "Close your eyes. And pick up my uniform when I'm done, I'll need it back later."
Moments later, there was a growl and Carrot re-opened his eyes, following Angua's shape into an alleyway with his sword drawn.
In this shape, a brown-red mist filled Angua's vision, getting thicker as she came closer to the source of the smell. She could practically smell the blood loss, and it didn't look good for whoever had been attacked. Her pace quickened to a run.
And then she stopped, because there was another smell in the air apart from the stench of blood. Werewolf.
Of course she'd known that there were other werewolves in Ankh-Morpork. She was on first-name terms with a few of them, even. But to smell one in these circumstances? Not that she liked jumping to conclusions, but it was hard to avoid it here.
So, the werewolf was… male, by the smell of it. Very large too, but male werewolves usually were. And he'd probably have a coat as black as coal. The big ones generally did, if only because of stereotype. He was angry, too. The faint wispy trail of his movements lay in front of Angua now, side by side with the smell left by the blood.
Behind her, Carrot opened his mouth to speak, but she continued on her path before he had the chance to say anything.
Something in the alleyway… gurgled. It was a pathetic sound, like a cry underwater. It wasn't a healthy sound, either. Angua had heard it before.
Carrot sheathed his sword and ran towards the wounded man in the alleyway.
"Sir?" he kneeled down beside him, and although it was barely noticeable, Angua saw him hold back a retch.
There was another gurgle.
Oh gods…
He'd had his jugular vein ripped out, along with most of his neck. His head would have flopped forwards had it not been propped against a stack of crates. Blood gushed down his clothes with every feeble breath he took.
Werewolf…
Angua had never done it herself, but she recognised the trick when done. She had seen it almost daily back in Uberwald, but seeing it here, in Ankh-Morpork… It shocked her, she supposed. Things like that… well, they weren't meant to happen here, back in civilisation.
Carrot touched the man's wrist gently and then slumped against the wall, his face hidden by the gloom. "Out of his misery, now."
He shut his eyes and ran his hands over his face, through his hair. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Angua Changed and pulled on her uniform quickly.
"It was a werewolf. I could smell it."
There was the slightest tilt of the head from Carrot, an indication of understanding. "Thought so. Couldn't have been an Assassin or a vampire, it's too messy. Couldn't have been a troll or a dwarf, it's too neat. Couldn't have been a Thief, because if they do accidentally kill someone it's not like that. Couldn't have been…"
"…anything but a werewolf," said Angua, and laid a hand on his shoulder. "What's the matter with you? You've seen someone die before, haven't you?"
They both glanced at the corpse. "Yes, but… no-one deserves to die like that."
"I know, Carrot. But he did. So how are we going to solve this one?"
That worked. Carrot solved things. Sometimes he created problems in doing so, but then he could solve that problem, too. Especially if it involved organisation.
"Well, for one thing, we can't properly investigate this until it's light. We'll need to get Constable Shoe in with the iconograph box to take some pictures of the scene before we start moving things. And we'll definitely need to get Commander Vimes. He's going to want to see this."
(1) Many tourists, after being promised a luxurious, spacious boat, arrived at the meeting point to find a withered, yellow (2) dingy with 'C.M.O.T. Dibbler Tour Company' painted on the side.
(2) This is a common businessman trick- paint it bright yellow, and everyone'll think it's brand new.
†Actually, the best thing to do would be to stay inside with the doors locked and the blinds closed, but on nights such as this the thought didn't occur to sensible people like postmen.
Author's Note: First chapter is up! Forgive me if the formatting's gone funny, it's been a while. I can always fix it because it's only the first chapter, anyway. Right chaps, review if you're nice. Or just review for the hell of it, I don't really mind.