by Tim O'Rourke
“Just get the fuck out of here,” Murphy grunted with the shake of his head. “Go and find Kiera.”
I turned to look at my friend. He looked at me. Then coming forward, Murphy threw his arms tight about my shoulders. “Don’t come back without her, Potter.”
“I won’t, I promise,” I whispered in his ear.
Pushing me away, he said, “Now fuck off, I’m sick of looking at your ugly face.”
I took one long hard look at my friends. What could I say to them that I hadn’t already said to them? “I hope to see you all later, alligators.”
“In a while, croc…” Kayla started before bursting into tears all over again.
“C’mon,” Lilly said, heading out of the square.
With my own eyes burning again, but filled with hope that I was going to see Kiera, I turned my back on my friends. And as I followed Lilly out of the square, I didn’t look back once. I just couldn’t.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Potter
“Where are you taking me?” I called out as Lilly led the way along the bank of a narrow stream.
“To a place that the wolves once used – a sacred place,” she said back over her shoulder. “I really don’t have time now to explain.”
“How much time do we have before the last of the cracks close?” I asked, catching up with her.
“No time at all,” she said. “We might already be too late.” She looked up at the sky which had already begun to darken. The faintest rays of moonlight seeped from behind a rolling bank of cloud.
Pulling off my coat and releasing my wings, I snatched Lilly into my arms and shot up into the sky. “Show me were to go,” I said.
“That way,” she said, her long, white fur coat falling about her legs in the wind. She pointed toward a hill in the distance.
With Lilly held tight to me, I raced through the sky, my wings beating on either side of me.
“You really do love Kiera, don’t you?” Lilly said, turning in my hold to look at me.
“More than anyone will ever know,” I said, swooping over the hill. I looked down to see a valley that wound its way between the hills that stretched into the distance.
“Follow the valley,” Lilly said.
Dropping out of the sky, I raced just feet above the floor of the valley, sending up clouds of earth and dust in my wake. The moon was full now and high up in the night sky which was awash with more stars than I had ever seen. It looked like a dark ocean filled with diamonds.
“There!” Lilly shouted over the roar of the wind that was created by the speed in which I flew.
I looked forward to see that the valley came to an abrupt end in the distance. There seemed to be nothing more than a wall of solid granite rock. But as I raced nearer to it, I could see there was something else. There appeared to be what looked like a shack made of wood. Raising my wings like two black sails, I slowed, then stopped. Hovering just feet above the ground with Lilly in my arms, I looked at the shack. I could see that there was a hole in the roof in which moonlight poured from above in a bright blue shaft.
“What is this place?” I asked, gently dropping to the ground and letting go of Lilly.
“It’s a sacred – secret place,” she said, striding toward it and throwing open the door.
“What kind of secret place?” I asked, following her toward the shack.
“Do you want to find Kiera or not?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Then step into the moonlight,” she said, looking into the small room on the other side of the open doorway.
I could see that the moonlight that streamed in through the hole in the roof made a perfect pool of light on the floor. Taking a deep breath, I stepped inside and into the shaft of moonlight.
I turned to face Lilly who was closing the door.
“Thank you, Lilly,” I said.
“Don’t thank me, Potter, as you might not like what you find on the other side of the moonlight,” she said before swinging the door to the shack closed.
“What’s that s’posed to mean?” I said, reaching out for the door and pushing it open.
But Lilly wasn’t on the other side of the doorway – Kiera was. She sat cross-legged on the floor of the valley some feet away. She wore a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over her head. I could see her beautiful face staring back at me from beneath it.
“Kiera,” I smiled, my heart feeling as if it was going to explode with joy.
I stepped from the doorway of the shack. I wanted to run toward her, but my legs failed me, as I tripped over myself. I dropped to the ground. There was a blinding flash of pain inside my head. My whole body felt as if I was being stretched – twisted out of shape. Clawing at the air, I looked up at my hands and howled as a wolf came forward inside my mind.
“No!” I roared in pain as I began tearing back my flesh, turning into the wolf that now lurked deep inside of me.
Chapter Thirty
Potter
The world looked like it was bleeding. The sky, the valley, Kiera, who had now sprang to her feet – everything looked blood red.
“Fuck!” I screamed, tearing away my flesh in jagged strips. “I’m fucking burning!” I had never felt such pain. It was unbearable. My whole body felt as if it was being crushed – caving in on itself. Dropping to my knees, I threw back my head and howled.
But had the sound which now screamed through the valley come from my throat or from the wolf I could see charging forward in my mind? I thrust my claws forward to defend myself, to rip its heart out – to stop it from taking me. It was a filthy fucking wolf and I wouldn’t be its slave. I convulsed on the floor of the valley as I fought with the wolf inside. I wouldn’t let it consume me – not ever. I would rather die than let it take me. I’d rather be dead than become a wolf. I hated them. The wolves were my enemy. Lilly had deceived me. She had tricked all of us.
“Please help me!” I roared, jerking my head from side to side in search of Kiera. She ran toward me, her face struck with horror. But she was moving so slow – like her legs were sinking into quicksand. The world had seemed to slow down all around me – but the stars raced at a blinding speed across the night sky.
I wrestled with the wolf that clawed at my very soul. Snarling, I pulled the flesh from my arms, chest, and back. I couldn’t stop myself, even though I could see the black bristling fur of the wolf beneath. My flesh was burning – like molten lava was dripping over my body – and the only way to rid myself of the agonising pain was to rip the flesh free. Raising my hands before my eyes, I watched them stretch and twist into giant claws. They looked deformed somehow, like meat hooks. Dropping onto all fours, I looked back as the last of my flesh fell from me – it dripped to the ground in a red mess. I howled in fear and pain as my spine rippled beneath a coat of black fur. And if the nightmare couldn’t have gotten worse, a long black tail slashed to and fro behind me. I couldn’t bear to look. I didn’t want to see what I had become. I didn’t want to see the wolf. When I hoped – or was that feared – that the transformation had come to its brutal end, a blinding stab of pain cut through my skull. It felt as if my head had been cracked in two. I felt my face begin to contort and spasm, like it was consumed with a thousand uncontrollable ticks. The last remaining strips of flesh covering my face began to writhe and ripple as where I’d once had a nose, a vicious snout now protruded. Snarling, I jerked my head back, drool swinging from the jagged teeth that now lined my gums. Feeling as if my eyes were being hooked out with two hot pokers, I felt the wolf come fully to the fore of my mind as if staring out of the holes where my own dark eyes had once been.
And to feel the wolf there, to feel it inside of me – or was I now inside of it – repulsed me. I hated the creature and I therefore hated myself as I now knew that we had become one. With every breath I took – with each of my heartbeats – I was fuelling the wolf. I was giving it life. I was giving it the freedom to control me and fill my head with its poisonous thoughts and desires. If I�
��d known hate before, it was nothing like the loathing I felt now. I wanted to kill, murder, and torment everyone and anything. It felt as if my soul had been ripped, or was it that my soul was binding together – forming some unholy union with the wolf that was now inside of me – was me.
Standing on all fours, tail whipping back and forth behind me, I lowered my head and looked at Kiera. I could smell the blood racing through her veins as she continued to run in slow motion toward me – like she had somehow stopped time. I could feel every beat of her heart like a drum in the pointed ears that jutted from each side of my skull. I wanted her so bad – the wolf wanted her – like I’d never wanted her before. But to take her in my arms – to make love to her – wasn’t enough. I wanted more. I wanted to tear the flesh from her body. I wanted to bury my snout into her soul – to suck her up deep into me. Did she know what I wanted to do to her body? Did Kiera know that I wouldn’t be happy until I had opened her up – torn her to pieces with the misshapen hooks I now had for claws? I wanted to call out to her – to warn her to keep back to keep away from me. But the wolf – that other darker and more evil side wanted her to come forward. He welcomed the chance to tear back her flesh and feed on what lay beneath. And even though the wolf knew that to do such a thing would kill her – deprive himself of the one person he loved most in the world, he seemed unable to quench the raging desire that burnt inside of him to kill. He would live with the anguish of what he had done later. But for now, all the wolf wanted to do was kill – kill the first living creature that came too close – even if it was Kiera Hudson, the woman that we both loved.
Howling, I sprang forward at her, my claws wanting – needing – to sink deep into her soft, welcoming flesh.
Chapter Thirty-One
Kiera
Scrambling to my feet, I watched with my hands to my face, as Potter convulsed on the ground outside of the shack. He screamed in pain and raked at his naked chest with his claws.
“I’m fucking burning!” he screamed, his black eyes bulging. But they no longer looked quite black. At first I thought it was perhaps the moonlight that made them shine so bright. But the light shining from above was milky-blue, not the fierce orange that glowed like fire behind Potter’s bulging eyes. And as he clawed the flesh from his body, I saw what looked like black fur break through the tears that his jagged fingernails made, I knew what was happening. My heart was racing. I understood what Potter was going through as I had lived that pain – that anguish that now consumed him. Potter was becoming a wolf.
But how? And why? Had the white wolf done this to him? Had the shack changed Potter? Had the wolf known what would happen? Was this his punishment for slaying all of those wolves in the valley? But why then not punish me? But how could I be punished any more than I already had been? The wolf that lived inside of me had taken me already. It had killed the man I loved. A sudden and frightening thought raced through me as I stood and watched Potter cry in pain on the ground. Had it been me who had changed him? Had being slain by a wolf – by me – changed Potter? Had it been me who had set that change in motion?
I could hardly bear to watch as Potter rolled onto all fours. Throwing back his head, he howled as his face began to stretch and shape-shift into that of a wolf. Thick lengths of spit flew from his jaws as he shook his head violently from left to right, as if wrestling with a demon deep inside of him. And there was a demon – there was a wolf. The creature that Potter most hated was taking over him, making them one, just like it had me. But I hadn’t resisted the wolf. It was in my blood as much as the Vampyrus. I had been born a half and half. I had been able to do little to resist the change. Potter was different. This change had been thrown upon him. His enemy had crept up on him – snuck up when he wasn’t looking. Potter had become his own enemy – the enemy of The Creeping men – those people he called his friends.
With the icy cold hands of fear gripping my heart, I couldn’t bear to watch him suffer – to writhe on the floor of the valley as the wolf inside consumed him. Whether this change had come about because of me or because of something the white wolf – Lilly Blu – had done, I couldn’t stand by and let him suffer alone. I could help him – ease his pain and suffering, for I understood it better than anyone. Pulling back my hood, I raced forward. Potter now stood on all fours, head low, burning eyes now fixed on mine. His lips rolled back into a snarl. He pounced.
As if aware of the immediate danger I was now in, the wolf shot forward in my mind in a blinding flash. Its charge was so violent that I shot off my feet and into the air. With my arms outstretched to break my fall, I saw them change. In an instant they were no longer my hands, but the claws of the wolf. I hit the ground, spinning around to face Potter and from the corner of my burning eyes, I saw the flick of my own tail. The world burnt red all around me. The craggy walls of the valley looked as if they were burning. Potter shot forward, jaws open and fangs barred. I darted away at speed, turning again to face him. With our heads bent low, we eyed each other.
“Potter!” I yelled, wanting him to hear my voice – to know that it was me. But it wasn’t the sound of his name that came from my throat, but a vicious sounding bark.
With his seething eyes locked with mine, he rolled back his snout and snarled. His claws scraped the ground as he readied himself to lunge at me again.
No, Potter! It’s me, Kiera, I shouted, but this time not out loud, but in my head. He flinched – more of a twitch – but I saw it all the same. His eyes narrowed as if there was some spark of recognition somewhere deep behind them.
You can fight this, I whispered inside my mind at him. Don’t let the wolf take you fully. Push him back – back into your mind. You told me that.
Potter snarled again.
Speak, Potter. Just speak to me. You can, I urged him. Find your voice. It’s still in there – you’re still in there.
Potter looked back at me. He shook his giant head from side to side as if battling that demon again. The light that burnt so fierce in his eyes flickered. Was it fading? Going out? Was Potter winning the battle with the wolf that I knew was raging deep inside of him?
You can do it, Potter. You can control the wolf – you don’t have to let it control you, I whispered, keeping my internal voice and thoughts calm even though I felt like screaming. I know you can hear me.
I can’t, I heard his voice like a faint whisper in my head. The wolf wants to kill you, Kiera.
But you don’t want to kill me, do you, Potter? I said back, my eyes searching his, looking for any sign that the fire in them was going out.
No, I heard him say. I love you.
I love you, too, Potter. Always have and always will. We can get through this. We’ve been through worse, I said, slowly daring to move forward toward him.
We’ve never been through anything like this, he said. This is un-fucking bearable. I’m a wolf, Kiera.
Good. He was talking – remembering – remembering us. As long as it was Potter’s voice that I could hear in my head and not the wolf’s then I knew there was a chance he would be able to control it.
I’m a wolf too, I whispered in my head back at him.
I’m scared, Kiera, I heard him whisper.
I’m scared too, I said right back. I saw that light go out in his eyes. We can be scared together.
Always together, he said, before slumping forward onto his front paws.
Always, I whispered, watching him roll onto his side, his body rising up and down.
Slowly, I moved forward and watched as Potter changed back from the wolf and into a man. But he didn’t look quite like the man I loved – no more than I looked like the woman he loved when caught somewhere between wolf and human. Potter’s hair was longer now – coarser and thicker. Hair covered the sides of his face like overgrown sideburns. He looked up at me, his eyes dark once more.
“Help me, Kiera. I don’t want to be a wolf, I hate the fuckers,” he whispered, before losing consciousness.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Kiera
Sensing that I was no longer in danger from Potter, the wolf slowly retreated back into my mind. As she went, I felt my body change – shape-shift once more back into my human form. Kneeling beside Potter, I placed my hand against the side of his face. The skin beneath the hair that covered it was too hot to touch. He felt as if a fire raged deep inside of him. Would the wolf come back? If it did, would Potter be able to push it away again? And what if he couldn’t? Would the desire to kill me consume him again? If it did, what then? Would Potter want to kill and slaughter innocent people just like my brother Jack had? He twitched on the ground before me, like he was experiencing some violent nightmare. Would Potter win out this time? Would he ever learn to control the wolf – tame it? Because I feared that the creature that now dwelt deep inside of him would never leave without a fight – without killing him. I believed that it had been the wolf that had brought him back to life. And if I were right, what would the wolf want in return to keep its host alive? Would the wolf want Potter to kill for it?
Kneeling beside Potter, I looked back into the valley. I looked toward the hills that circled me on all sides. I watched for any signs of that white wolf. Did the ghost of Lilly Blu have a plan for Potter – a plan for the both of us? Was that why she had saved Potter’s life – brought him back from the dead? Did the wolves now have a confederate – someone like them who could infiltrate The Creeping Men? Was the white wolf’s intention for Potter to become her spy to help seek revenge against Murphy – the man who had killed her in this world? And how would Potter be able to refuse? He was now a wolf just like her – just like me. How could I ever return to The Creeping Men? How could Potter? For if they knew what we were, we would both be dead. We were now nothing more than fugitives, on the run from the people we had both once loved and still loved.