by Tim O'Rourke
I yanked open the passenger door, and fought desperately to push Marc between the back and front seats of the car. He thrust his jaws at me as he tried to bite my face. The car shook violently and I looked up to see Steve crouching on the roof. He swiped at me with one razor-sharp paw, and then he was flying backwards through the air. I ducked to avoid his paw. When I looked over the bonnet of the car again, I saw a giant black winged creature spinning through the air, as it slashed, ripped, and bit at Steve. Marc continued to bark as I slammed the car door against his legs.
He instinctively drew them into the car, and I shut the door, imprisoning him inside. I looked back to see Steve go racing away up the road. The winged creature I had seen hovered momentarily in the air as if deciding whether to go after him or not, then turned to face me.
“Rom?” I breathed. “What are you doing here?”
“Come to save your sorry arse,” he said, dropping out of the sky and landing on the road.
With his wings disappearing back inside him, he strode towards me.
“I was right about Marc and his brother,”
I said.
Rom looked me up and down. I stared down at myself and could see I was covered in blood, puke, twigs, leaves, and dirt. “What in the name of sweet Jesus…” he started, his mouth hanging wide open.
“Marc murdered my friend, Pen,” I told him, taking the DVD from my jacket pocket. “It’s all on this disc.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Murphy
We drove home, Marc lying face down in the back of the car, barking and howling all the way. At the police station, Marc was taken to the cells, while I sat in Rom’s office, sipping at a hot mug of coffee. Rom sat away from me, silently watching the DVD I had found.
I ached all over and my head hurt. Not through any injury, cut, or bruise, and I had many, but because of the knowledge that Pen was dead was finally seeping its way into my consciousness.
Back at her house I’d been too preoccupied fighting to save my own life and bringing the DVD
and Marc to Rom. But now as I sat, bent forward, the realisation that my friend had gone, had been murdered, hammered away at my mind like a blunt axe. I wanted to be strong, I wanted to be able to accept I would never speak to or see her again, because the quicker I did, the sooner the agonising wound her death had created inside of me would be healed.
The urge to cry was too strong to resist. I felt as if my heart had been torn from my chest and repeatedly stamped on. Hot tears ran from my swollen eyes again and streamed down my cheeks. I bent forward and sobbed in pain. Those images of Pen thrashing about on the floor with Marc on top of her, hands round her throat, kept forcing their way into my mind like splinters of broken glass.
The mug of coffee I had been holding slipped from my fingers and onto the floor, as I rocked back and forth, clutching my head in my hands. I wanted those images of Pen suffering out of my mind. I couldn’t bear to look at them anymore. But they just kept coming, slicing away at my brain, and it was agony.
I hadn’t seen Rom get up and approach me, but I knew he was there, standing right next to me. He gently squeezed my shoulder with one of his huge hands.
“Go on, son, let it all out,” he whispered.
“There was nothing you could have done, nothing any of us could have done. By the looks of things, your friend died over a week ago.”
“Her name was, Pen. And she wasn’t just a friend to me...” I croaked.
“I don’t want to know what kind of relationship you had with her...” Rom cut over me, as if trying to protect himself in some way.
“She was like a sister to me...” I sobbed.
“Sure she was,” Rom soothed. “And you were a good brother. You risked your life to find out what had happened to her, even though she was a wolf.”
I wiped my running nose and eyes on the back of my sleeve and sat back in the chair and looked at Rom.
“Pen’s body is in the basement,” I told him.
“What basement?” he asked, looking confused.
“You’ll find Pen’s body in the basement at the Ooze bar. I’m sure that’s where Marc has hidden her.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Just a feeling – a hunch,” I assured him.
“I was right though, wasn’t I…about Pen, I was right.”
Rom looked away from me and I could sense his embarrassment and shame.
“Yeah you were, kiddo, you were.” His gaze met mine again and he said, “I’m sorry, I should’ve helped you sooner.”
“It won’t bring Pen back, and like you said – however painful it may be, Pen was dead long before I got that note,” I said.
“What note?” he asked suspiciously.
Realising what I had said, and not wanting to break my promise to Annie, I shook my head and said, “It was nothing, nothing at all.”
Rom sniffed, looked at me, and changing the subject, he said, “So you gonna come check out this basement with me, or not?”
I shook my head. The thought of finding Pen’s naked, dead body made me want to throw up again. I didn’t want to see her battered and bruised body, the strangulation marks about her neck, her lips swollen and purple. I wanted to remember her beautiful as she stared up at those magical moving pictures in The Hollows.
There’s no place like home! I could almost hear Dorothy whisper in my ear – but it was Pen’s voice I could hear.
“I’m not coming with you. I’m gonna go home,” I said to Rom and left his office.
The sun was peeking over the horizon when I eased open the front door to the small house I shared with Chloe. The night’s events had caught up with me and I needed sleep. As I had crossed town, I had fought a constant battle with my eyelids as they continually tried to slide shut. I had almost swerved from the road twice, but I had pushed on, my most immediate need wasn’t to fall into the warm embrace of Chloe, but to fall into bed.
As I stepped into the hall, I noticed that another white envelope had been tucked under the door. I picked it up and removed the folded piece of paper from inside. The handwriting was identical as that scribbled on the last two letters. I wondered what else Annie had to tell me. It read: I think we should forget about each other…until I’m ready to contact you again.
I was too tired to read and re-read her note and pontificate on its meaning. So I placed it back into its envelope and tucked it into my jacket pocket. I closed the door and went upstairs. Chloe was asleep on her side, making those gentle breathing sounds she always made when deep in sleep. I kissed her on the cheek and lay down next to her. I was asleep before I’d even removed my clothes.
Rom obviously didn’t like the idea of me sleeping, as it was the second time in the last two days he had disturbed my sleep by calling me on the telephone. I woke suddenly, and for a moment I couldn’t remember where I was. The room was in total darkness, so I fumbled around for the bedside lamp. I switched it on and stared at my watch through bleary eyes. I blinked twice when I saw the time. It was 22:37 hours – I had slept through the entire day and evening. Chloe must have decided to leave me be and rest, and I guessed she was working a nightshift.
The phone continued to ring beside me, so I picked up the receiver and said, “Hello?”
“Murphy, is that you?” he said.
“Yes, it’s me,” I replied.
“I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day!” he barked.
“Sorry, but I’ve been sleeping,” I explained.
“Look, I just wanted you to know that we drew a blank at the bar…you know, in the basement. Your friend’s body wasn’t there.”
So it was true – Pen really had been murdered. I’d hoped it had been part of some hideous dream nightmare, I thought to myself as I tried to comprehend what Rom was telling me.
“That’s strange, because Marc definitely hadn’t wanted me going down in the basement the other day when I paid him a visit,” I said.
“Yeah, and I know why!” he
boasted.
“The place was full of stolen property. Looks like Steve, Marc’s younger brother, has been responsible for a spate of robberies that have been taking place over the last few months. So thanks to you and one of your hunches, the local cops have managed to solve over thirty robberies.”
“I’m pleased for them,” I said dryly.
“I sent a couple of the team to go track Steve down. They brought him in this afternoon,”
Rom explained.
“But what about Pen’s body?” I pushed.
There was a pause on the other end of the line and I could hear Rom clearing his throat. “I haven’t had much luck there, I’m afraid. Neither Marc or his brother is talking – they ain’t saying anything. I got some of the team to take ‘em both round the back of the station and give ‘em both a slap – but they still didn’t talk. So I went and paid ‘em a little visit in their cells. Even when I had young Steven’s nuts squeezed so tight in my hand I thought his eyes were gonna pop straight outter his head – he still wouldn’t say anything!”
I mentally recalled the size of Rom’s huge hands and even my eyes began to water at the thought of him crushing Steve’s nuts with them.
“Look, it sounds like you’ve got a grip of things…” I never intended that to sound like some cheap punch-line, but Rom roared with laughter down the phone.
“That’s the way, son, keep looking on the funny side of things. I’ll have those bastards talking before long…I promise, when I’ve finished with ‘em, they’ll be wishing they’d been castrated at birth! And when they do start talking, you’ll be the first to know,” he assured me.
“Thank-you,” I said and hung up the phone.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Murphy
Rom never did manage to incite Marc or Steve to confess where and how they had disposed of Pen’s body, however much encouragement he gave them. They probably believed that if her body was never found they wouldn’t be found guilty of her murder by the Elders. So both went to trial without saying a single word about the death of Pen. Then again, they didn’t need to, as everything the Elders needed to find them guilty was on that DVD.
During the days after losing Pen, I told Chloe everything that had happened – well, almost everything and it was becoming harder and harder for me to keep my true identity from her. There was never going to be a trial in a courthouse, with a judge and jury, defence lawyers and prosecutors. The case would be held in secret, below ground – deep within The Hollows. It wasn’t only that which made me feel like a fraud.
Even though Pen had gone, I knew I was still in love with her – however much it had been forbidden. Chloe deserved someone better than me. She deserved a man who would love her – she needed to be with a human. I would only bring her heartache and I couldn’t do that to her. So one evening as she left for her nightshift as a paramedic, I sat at the kitchen table and started to write her a letter. However much I tried, I couldn’t find the words I needed to say. Whatever I wrote would only be a lie. So taking the letter Pen had first written to me when she had made contact again – the letter which spoke of The Hollows, the Fountain of Souls, the Vampyrus, and the Lycanthrope – I placed it open on the table for Chloe to find. It explained everything. Then, taking the slippers she had bought for me that Christmas, as I wanted something to remember her by, I turned out the lights and left her. I wondered if we would ever meet again – something might push us back together.
Rom moved me to another station, but I kept in touch with him. We talked about possible locations of where Marc and Steve may have disposed of Pen’s body. The fact that they remained silent seemed to me to be the cruellest part of their crime. I found it impossible to even begin to deal with my grief without being able to bury my friend and say a final goodbye to her. I think they both understood this, and refused to give up their secret to inflict on me as much pain as possible.
Rom surprised me by suggesting I get together with some of Pen’s friends and hold a small wake for her. I didn’t really know too many of Pen’s friends, only the ones she had briefly introduced to me on my visits to see her. The only friend of Pen’s I really knew was Annie, but in her last note to me, she had asked that I forgot all about her. I planned on respecting her wish.
Two weeks after discovering the DVD, Marc and his brother Steve were taken before the Elders. The short hearing was held in one of the many temples deep in The Hollows. The room looked something like a small chapel, with walls that had been carved out of red rock. Clusters of candles burnt in each corner, casting long, eerie shadows over the walls that flickered as if they were alive. The Elders, stood in their hooded grey robes, faces covered. They cleared Steve of the murder of Pen but found him guilty of the attempted murder of me, a Vampyrus police officer, while trying to capture a rogue Lycanthrope. He was given life imprisonment in The Hollows. Marc was found guilty of murdering Pen and was sentenced to death by decapitation – one of the only sure ways of killing a Lycanthrope.
As the Elders stated his fate, their childlike voices echoed chillingly off the stone walls of the temple.
On hearing the sentences passed down, I looked across the makeshift courtroom at Marc and Steve, who stood next to one another looking gaunt and pale, their hands manacled to a chain that looped about their waists. As Marc heard his fate, he howled at the hooded Elders and rattled his chains.
Rom began to chuckle. The Elders turned their covered faces towards him, and Rom’s laughter faded. I thought I would feel some sense of satisfaction, some form of closure on hearing their sentences, but in truth, I didn’t feel anything.
I was numb at the thought of all the lives that had been ruined, theirs included. Marc’s death wouldn’t bring Pen back.
Marc and Steve were escorted from the courtroom and back to their cells. I was about to leave, when one of the Elders spoke from beneath their hood.
“Constable Murphy,” the Elder said in its childish voice. “We heard what the female Lycanthrope claimed on that disc before she was murdered.”
I turned back to face them.
“She said she loved you,” another of them spoke. “And said she always had.”
“I can explain...” I started.
“You had better not have mixed with the wolf, Constable,” the Elder said. Although its voice sounded like that of a nine-year-old girl, it had a menacing and threatening tone to it. “You were obviously close to this female wolf. If it wasn’t for the fact she is dead now, you too would be facing trial here today.”
“But...” I started again.
“We’re not interested in your excuses, Constable,” said another, a harsh screeching tone to its voice. “Keep your distance from the wolves – don’t be tempted by them.”
“I won’t be,” I whispered back.
“We’ll be watching your career with interest,” the one with the girl-like voice warned.
Outside the courthouse, Rom approached me and patted me on my back. “Well, kiddo, looks like justice has been done. It’s a shame that both of ‘em won’t be getting the chop, but one outter two ain’t bad.”
“I’m just glad that it’s all over,” I said.
“You’ll come on the big day, won’t you?”
Rom said.
“What big day?”
“You know, the day they hold numb-nuts down and chop off his head!” and he made a swiping motion through the air with the flat of his hand.
On realizing what he was talking about, I shook my head and said, “No, I don’t think I’ll bother…”
“Hey, you got to! I’ll make sure we get front row seats…” Rom started enthusiastically.
“I’ll see you around,” I said, slowly walking away.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Murphy
The day before Marc’s execution, I got up early and made breakfast, which I sat and ate alone in the tiny flat I had rented above ground.
Since Pen’s death, I had thrown myself back into my career and deci
ded to study for my sergeant’s exam. I thought it might be a welcome distraction from everything that had happened. I showered, and looking in the cracked mirror above the sink, I could see my hair had grown greyer in colour, and I now had streaks of silver through it. I was only twenty-three. I stood, wrapped in my bathrobe, and trembled in the cold. Christmas was only a few weeks away again, and the first flurries of snow had started to fall. I headed to the kitchen to make a hot coffee. It was then I saw the envelope sticking out of the letterbox like a white tongue, and I pulled it free. My name had been scribbled across the front of it. I ripped it open and pulled out the folded piece of paper that had been tucked inside. It read:
I think it’s safe for us to meet again.
Pen once told me about the lake. Come tonight.
I hadn’t thought of Annie in a while and was shocked to have suddenly heard from her again. Why does she want to meet up again? I wondered to myself. Maybe she wanted to meet one last time before Marc was executed? After all, with Marc only hours from his own death, and with Steve serving a life sentence, Annie probably felt it safe enough to meet up with me again.
Receiving the letter had set me off-course somehow, and instead of hitting the study books, I anxiously spent the next hour or two pacing back and forth around the house, my mind once more full of memories of Pen. I felt as if that letter had bewitched me, filling my head again of my friend’s murder. Part of me was brimming with excited curiosity at meeting Annie again and finding out what it was that she wanted, but the other part of me resented her for coming back into my life and cutting open the stitching that I had used to seal up those wounds. But maybe that was the problem – perhaps I had never really tended to those wounds and had just fixed them up with Band-Aids. I wondered if Annie hadn’t done the same. Maybe by meeting with her tonight, hours from our nemesis’s demise, we would both find permanent healing.