CHAPTER 1.
EASY MEAT. 

Canal St, Manchester – June 7, 1999

“SHE’LL eat you alive.”

“She’s only human,” said Matt, gaze fixed on the girl.

“She’s out of your league.”

“I’m up for promotion.”

Dan laughed, then said, “She’ll chew you up and spit you out.”

“No way. Look at her. She’s easy meat.”

He considered the girl for a moment. Then, swigging his Budweiser, he thought, Yeah, I’m right: she is easy meat.

The music throbbed up into Matt’s chest. The lights flash-gunned as bodies jerked on the dance floor below. He leaned over to Dan, whose eyes roved the club in search of other prey. “I’m making my move,” he said, his stare never leaving the girl at the bar.

He swaggered towards her. She crossed her legs and Matt’s gaze drifted to the darkness beneath her silver dress. The glimpse stirred something in his balls. He groaned in appreciation, heat shuttling through him. The girl sipped from the straw sticking out of the watermelon Bacardi Breezer. She swept a hand through her pitch-black hair.

He said, “I’ll get you another one of those.”

She snared him in her gaze. Her autumn-coloured eyes fixed on him, and a shiver creeped down his back. Matt flashed the smile, all teeth and dimples.

“Would you like one?” he said.

She said nothing. Her nostrils flared as if she was sniffing him. Her eyes were locked on Matt, and he felt the confidence drain out of him. Look away, babe, he thought, like you’re not interested because you really are. Smile. Frown. Shake your head. Do something.

Matt leaned forward. Her perfume saturated his nostrils. “What’s your name?” he said, hoping the noise would hide the trembling in his voice.

“Laura Greenacre.”

“Matt Grundy.” He offered a hand. She didn’t take it. “There’s no need to be like that.”

“Like what?”

“Rude.”

“I’m not interested. That’s all.”

“But we’ve only just met.”

“Well, nice to meet you. Bye.”

Shit, he thought, lesbian.

Dan and Matt guessed the gay club would be brimming with straight girls. Straight girls liked gay men, didn’t they? Felt safe in their company. No complications. So for straight guys like them, the odds of pulling were high. Or should have been. Just his luck the hottest babe on the block was a butch. They never considered that a gay nightspot would pull in the lesbian crowd. Didn’t they have their own clubs?

“Hey, I’m sorry.” Matt held up his hands up in surrender. “No hard feelings. You’re just the most gorgeous girl here. I didn’t know you were … you know … I’m sorry. Can I buy you a drink anyw–”

“Didn’t know I was what?”

“You know, that you like . . . girls.”

She laughed and shook her head. Her long, dark hair swished over her bare shoulders. Then she said, “I don’t. I mean I’m not like that. I’m just not interested in you.” She laughed again.

It was like a punch in the guts.

“Okay.” He could feel his face flush. “Don’t take the piss.”

“I’m not taking the piss.” Her laugh drifted away into the babel of music and voices. “It’s just you thought I was lesbian because I didn’t fancy you. How sad’s that?”

He didn’t know where the rage came from, but it came, and it was blinding. He flipped the beer bottle towards her, spilling it across her breasts. She sprang to her feet and stared down at her Budweiser-soaked dress.

The fury left Matt’s head like it came: in a spark. He gawped at the girl, a coldness sweeping over him.

He tried to say sorry but no words came out, only a bumbling sound. He shook his head like a man rejecting an impossible vision. He didn’t see her arm lash out, but he felt the nails dig through his shirt and into his chest. A flash of agony surged into his brain. He dropped the beer bottle, and it shattered. He grabbed the girl’s arm, squeezing. It was so slender he thought it would snap in his fists.

It didn’t.

It raised him off his feet.

Clubbers turned to ogle as the girl forced him upwards, the pain in his chest searing as her nails dug into his skin.

Matt looked down at her. She looked up at him. Her eyes were yellow. Animal eyes. The pupils were black slits. Matt’s scream pierced the cacophony.

He felt his neck jerk as the girl tossed him away. The air rushed out of him. As he spiraled, clutching at nothingness, he glimpsed the whirlpool of faces watching him fall.

Their shrieks rattled his eardrums as he soared over the balcony and plunged into a lake of dancers. The dancers parted, and the floor hurtled towards him. The audience gasped as he crash-landed. As unconsciousness swept over Matt, he saw those yellow animal eyes: the eyes of the girl Dan warned would eat him alive.

 * * *

Elena McIntyre saw the girl push her way through the crowd.

Ice water rushed through Elena’s veins.

It can’t be, she thought.

It’s impossible.

Light drowned the club. The music died. Shouts and screams criss-crossed. Revellers babbled and thronged to the balcony to see where the man had smashed into the floor. Clubbers shoved past Elena as they dashed to secure the best spot.

It can’t be her, Elena told herself, staring at the girl who was using her arms to hack a path through the forest of bodies.

It is her.

The girl had her back to Elena. They were ten feet apart. But Elena could see it on the younger woman’s shoulder, nestling below the scapula.

“Run!” The racket swallowed her shout. But the girl heard, and she turned to face the warning. She bolted, forging a path through the bodies. A have-a-go headcase lunged at the fleeing girl. She swatted him away as if he were an insect.

Elena followed her as the bouncers shoved through the crowd. She watched the girl bound the stairs three at a time.

The girl crashed through a door marked boys. Three boys spilled out, tripping over each other.

Elena reached the door. She heard glass shatter from the inside. She rushed into the toilet. Cool air brushed her cheeks. She went to the window and leaned out, careful not to wound herself on the jagged edges of glass spouting from the frame.

“I know who you are,” she said as the girl got to her feet three floors below. No street lights illuminated the alley, but the younger woman was held by the moon’s glare. She gazed upwards to the voice.

Elena shouted again. “I know who you are. I know what you are.”

The toilet door crashed open and Elena turned. Three bouncers stumbled into the toilet. Elena leaned out of the window to shout an alert. The warning locked in her throat. The girl was gone.

CHAPTER 2.
KILLER.

Templeton Hall, near Hexham, Northumberland – August 6, 1999

THE blow shattered the rottweiler’s ribcage.

The dog was in mid-flight, pouncing on its prey, when the monster burst from the thicket. The crack of bone snapped at the night.

The rottweiler yelped as the impact hurled it off course. The animal crashed into undergrowth.

The dog squealed and struggled and shat as teeth and claws ripped through its fur and flesh, tearing it to shreds.

The other two dogs stood statue still. They were no longer interested in chasing the prowler who had activated the alarm, which got them freed from their cage. The dogs’ hesitation gave the intruder time to escape the grounds by scaling the ten-foot perimeter wall.

But something else lurked in dark, tangled undergrowth. Something huge, and terrifying, and lethal.

The rottweilers locked eyes with the gloom that had swallowed their pack leader. They sniffed. The scent was fat with blood and danger.

One dog whimpered. It barked a warning, stepped forward. Then it faltered.

It stepped back.

It turned and bolted, and its companion followed.

Ears back, tails between their legs, the dogs fled.

And something pursued them, baring down on its prey.

* * *

The alarm wailed. John Thorn raced from the house. He yanked the Browning automatic from its holster.

Security lights flooded the front lawn. Thorn hurtled through the glowing pool created by the light, his heart punching at his chest.

Lucky he switched the alarm system back on after the fool who was supposed to be responsible forgot. Thorn pledged to report the guy to the security firm.

He headed for the woods at the far end of the lawn.

His grip on the gun tightened.

Thorn stopped at the edge of the lake of light and crouched. His breathing was steady, drawing the August air into his lungs. He squinted, forcing his eyes to grow accustomed to the dark. It seemed thicker, darker in the trees.

He shouted into the dark. “Armed police. If you’ve got a weapon, put it on the ground and step out with your hands above your head. Now.”

Silence and darkness.

Voices babbled from the house two hundred yards behind him. Thorn glanced over his shoulder and clenched his teeth. A cluster of guests had gathered at the front entrance.

Get them inside, he thought.

Tuxedoed security men tried to herd the flock back into the mansion, but Sir Adam Templeton’s guests scented action. They wanted to see what tripped the alarms and the security lights; and what made the dogs bark and howl.

The guests were business leaders, politicians, family, and friends of Sir Adam, a Northern Ireland minister during the Thatcher regime. They were launching a venture that promised to create hundreds of jobs. Thorn had no idea what kind of jobs, or if they’d ever materialise. He didn’t let that worry him. The police sergeant was focused on his job: protecting Sir Adam.

He stared into the knot of beeches and oaks. A shiver seeped through him.

Seconded to the ex-MP eighteen months earlier, Thorn had two months left before returning to duties with the Northumbria force at their HQ in Ponteland. He craved it. Wished he could fold the calendar and make those eight weeks disappear. Accompanying the insular and sullen Sir Adam to functions and meetings had been tedious; ensuring the former minister’s arrogant son, Michael, kept out of trouble had been wearisome.

This latter function was secondary and unofficial, but Thorn felt it part of his responsibilities to protect the whole clan. With a host of Templetons at that evening’s do, Thorn felt his duties had multiplied. The burden was a heavy one.

He whistled, hoping the dogs would react. Nothing moved in the trees. His palms were sweaty on the Browning. The gun had been unholstered only once before, but never fired in action.

Right, in you go, Johnny-boy.

He glanced over his shoulder again. The guests were being penned into Templeton Hall’s Georgian structure. Two security guards hired for the night jogged down the lawn towards Thorn. With back up on the way, relief brushed away some of Thorn’s tension.

He stared back into the woods.

Dark and still and silent.

He straightened and moved forward.

His feet crunched on the gravel path that circled the house and lawn. Crossing into the blackness of the trees, he felt the atmosphere tighten. The pleasing temperatures that August nights brought with them turned clammy. The beeches lurched above him. Leaves rustled and twigs cracked beneath his feet as he treaded deeper into the maw.

Swallowed by darkness, Thorn gazed upwards. Summer made the trees thick and he could only glimpse a hint of sky, a sliver of moonshine above him.

“Shit.”

Thorn’s legs felt like hundredweights. His bladder became heavy. His eyes watered as they fought to penetrate the blackness.

He spun round as the ground shook, twigs cracking, heavy shoes crunching through the undergrowth.

“You couldn’t make any more noise, could you?”

The two security men who followed him from the house halted. They glanced at each other like schoolboys caught smoking.

“Found anything?” said Finch, built like an oak tree with a bushy goatee.

“Found anything? I can’t see anything.” Thorn wished them away, but he felt safer with some muscle.

The skinhead named Norton, who played rugby for the Newcastle Falcons’ second eleven, drifted off to the left.

“Stay close,” said Thorn. “It … whatever … they might still be out here.”

Finch said, “‘It’? What do you mean ‘it’?”

“The dogs are dead, Finch.”

“I thought you hadn’t found anything.”

“That’s why I think they’re dead.”

“You called them?”

Thorn nodded, wanting to end the conversation and delve deeper into the trees. “And I heard them make a right fucking racket,” he said. “Something was killing them.”

Finch seemed to tense. His gaze flitted from side to side. “You think we should get some more men? Some guns?”

Thorn waved his Browning. “I’ve got a gun.”

“Jesus Christ. Thorn. Come look at this.”

It was Norton. Panic pinched his voice into a higher pitch.

Thorn’s heart lunged at his ribcage. “Where are you, Norton?” He hurried through the darkness, Finch at his heels, the security man’s breathing as heavy as his footfalls.

“Keep talking. We can’t see you.”

“Here. Over here. Christ. Hurry. It must still be out here.”

Thorn could hear the panic in Norton’s voice. It must still be out here.

Thorn could see the skinhead standing like a mourner at a grave. The sergeant kicked on through the undergrowth. A stench struck at his nose: a coppery smell, heavy and warm.

“There’s fucking blood everywhere, man.” Norton’s voice was a whine.

Thorn wanted to puke. His throat locked, dry like sandpaper. Behind him, Finch coughed and spluttered and swore at the sight.

“What the fuck did that?” said Norton, as if hoping someone would make sense of the carnage.

Thorn’s stare fixed on the two heads. Torn away from the bodies, the black fur on both was matted in blood. The eyes were white and empty, and the mouths gaping. The pink tongues lolled like giant slugs over the jaws.

The animals’ remains were scattered about the undergrowth: a paw, a flank, a leg, bones, guts, blood.

Steam rose from the meat. Thorn felt it cling to his skin, creep up his nostrils. The hairs on his nape stiffened, and he shivered. It must still be out here.

“Get back to the house. Call the police,” said Thorn.

“Should we tell Sir Adam?” said Norton as he turned his back on the carnage. Finch had already skulked into the darkness.

“No. Don’t say anything.”

Finch and Norton threaded their way out of the woods. Thorn listened until their footsteps faded. He gazed at the rottweilers’ remains. He still had to find the other dog. Thorn knew it would be in a similar state of dismemberment.

But whatever killed it, and these two . . .

His grip on the Browning tightened. Sweat leaked from his armpits. A chill leached through his bones. His eyes roved the darkness.

. . . could still be in here.

He stalked backwards, watching the blackness about him as best he could. If an animal (what kind of animal could do this?) lay in wait in the murk, it could see him. It had an advantage. A voice in Thorn’s head urged him to run. But his nerves held firm against the flight instinct. A dash would only trigger an attack. He’d probably get one shot off before being downed.

Thorn kept moving. The only sounds were his breathing and the crunching of twigs as he stepped away from the bloody scene. His eyes searched for danger signs. The lights of Templeton Hall shimmered through the bulk of the beeches. It would be good to get inside; sink a brandy to temper his shakes. It would be good to –

It crashed from the thicket to his left.

He spun to face it, eyes half-closed to take the blow, gun hand ready to fire.

But it was too close.

He thrust up an arm to protect his face. The figure smacked into him. He heard a crack, and his elbow jolted. He staggered away, swiping at the darkness. Thorn gasped, ready for the attack.

It never came.

He leaned against the trunk of a tree, the bark rough against his skull. His stomach muscles knotted, and his belly lurched.

The girl lay on the ground. She was naked. Her dark hair fanned around her head and shoulders. She wiped what looked liked blood from her mouth and chin. Her cheeks were streaked pink. A bruise cupped her left eye.