by Tim O'Rourke
I left for the forest, which surrounded the lake, in late afternoon. I parked my car some way off, as there was nothing other than a dirt track. I made my way down to the lake on foot, and as I pulled the collar of my jacket up against the cold, it started to snow. I made my way over the familiar ground and it dawned on me that I hadn’t been back to the lake since Pen was sent away all those years ago. The forest and the lake with its thick, red waters had always been there but I had kept away. As I neared the lake again, I felt a certain amount of anxiety, and an overpowering sense of regret. Maybe I should have come back from time to time, sat on my own and enjoyed the memories of Pen and me. Perhaps I should have visited on her birthday and laid some flowers on the lake, perhaps…perhaps…perhaps. I hadn’t done any of these things, and in my heart, I knew why I had avoided this place. I had found it too painful to return without my friend. This had been our place, our secret hideaway, where we had both fallen in love. It had been our playground, our utopia, our sanctuary – and without Pen, I believed it would feel lifeless, dead, just like her. We had enjoyed this place together, not alone.
I pulled out the torch I had brought with me and peered curiously around. To my surprise, it hadn’t really changed at all. I passed the light over the area where we had once sat on the shore and skimmed pebbles across the red water. I stood and watched as thick flakes of snow seesawed lazily to and fro in the glow of my torch. I recalled how it had often snowed during the many hours that Pen and I had spent together down here. I remembered the last time that we had been here together. That had been the night she had fled at the sound of her father seeking her out. I could see us sharing that kiss. I could hear myself telling Pen I loved her.
As I stood and recalled all of those wonderful, yet painful memories, my eyes began to sting and then fill with tears. My shoulders shook uncontrollably as I began to sob, releasing months of pent-up anguish.
“I miss you, Pen,” I whispered.
It was then I heard the sound of movement from the trees behind me. I wiped my eyes and peered into the darkness.
“Annie?” I called into the night. “Annie is that you?”
I then saw movement. A figure stepped out from between the snow-laden spruces and pines. I went to shine my torch in that direction but it slipped from between my fingers and dropped to the ground.
The figure came closer and I fumbled around for the torch. The tips of my fingers brushed over it. I snatched it up and shone it directly into the face of the approaching figure. On seeing their face, my legs gave out from beneath me and I fell backwards into the snow.
“Hello again, Jim,” she said, holding out her hand towards me.
Shaking uncontrollably, and wondering if I was dreaming, I reached out and took hold of Pen’s hand.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Murphy
Pen looked at me, her eyes bright and keen. Her long, blond-white hair trailed about her shoulders in thick waves. She wore a thick, white fur coat which trailed about her feet. The collar was up, nestling against the sides of her face.
“Pen?” I breathed, unable to believe it was really her. “Pen, is it really you?”
As if to prove to me that it was truly her and that she was very real, Pen threw her arms around me. “It’s me, Jim, it’s really me,” she whispered in my ear. Her breath felt warm against the side of my face. I pulled away from her.
“But how? You’re meant to be dead.”
Then without saying another word, she took me by the hand and led me into the forest.
Silently, we made our way through the trees until we came to a thick brush of undergrowth. Some snow had managed to work its way through the leafy canopy above us, and had covered the bushes. Gently, Pen pushed them aside, revealing a small circular area which offered shelter from the cold and the snow. Pen faced me and looked deep into my eyes. There was so much I wanted to say. So much I wanted to ask. Before I’d the chance to say anything, Pen leant forward and kissed me on the mouth. Her lips were soft. I closed my eyes and kissed her back. Gently at first, then more deeply. Her tongue felt like velvet inside my mouth. Pen pulled me close as I lost my hands in her hair. Her coat fell open and I could feel her naked body against me, which only heightened my desire for her. As we kissed, Pen pulled my jacket and shirt free. Then, fumbling with a growing passion, Pen unfastened my belt, pulling my jeans and shorts down over my hips. I kicked off my boots, then stepped out of my clothes. I placed my hands inside her coat, and cupped one of her soft breasts in my hand. Pen let her coat slip from her shoulders where it fell to the leaf-covered ground. As we continued to cover each other in kisses, we lowered ourselves onto the leafy ground, using her coat like a blanket. Pen rolled me onto my back and climbed on top of me.
Slowly, we began to make love and it felt like I had waited a lifetime for this moment. I placed my hands around her back, pulling her down onto me.
She worked her hips gently in a rocking motion, and I kissed her neck, face, breasts, anywhere I could.
“I love you,” she murmured in my ear.
“I love you more, Pen,” I breathed, moving my hips in time with hers. And even though I knew what we were doing was wrong – forbidden – it only increased my desire. I pushed the sound of the Elders’ warning from my mind and gave myself completely to Pen. How could something which felt so beautiful be a crime?
Then, as I ran my fingertips down the length of her spine as she continued to move faster and faster on top of me, I no longer felt smooth, cold skin, but soft, warm fur. I opened my eyes a fraction and could see that Pen’s body was covered in a fine coat of pure white fur. She threw her head back and the softest of howls escaped from between her red lips. She looked more beautiful than any woman I had ever seen and she excited me. My heart raced in my chest and my head spun as my own claws shot from my fingertips, my fangs protruded from my gums, and my wings tried to free themselves from under me.
She looked down into my face, both us now as we were meant to be – in our true form – Vampyrus and Lycanthrope.
“You truly are beautiful,” I whispered.
“How beautiful?” she murmured.
“I’ll show you,” I said, easing her off me.
Gently, I lowered myself over her, as she wrapped her legs around my back, and I wrapped my arms round her. Locked together as if we were just one being, I made love to her. My wings sprung from my back, and they draped over us, hiding us from the rest of the world. The world which forbid our love for each other, made it feel dirty and wrong – unnatural. We cried out as one, then collapsed in each other’s arms. With her coat beneath us, and my wings wrapped over us, we held each other tight. How I had longed for this moment. For the first time in my life, I felt a kind of peace wash over me.
With her head nestled against my chest, and my face lost in her hair, I said, “I don’t understand what’s going on here. I saw you die with my own eyes, Pen.”
“I thought I was dead, too, until I woke up suddenly to find myself wrapped up tightly in a blanket, in the dark and on my own,” she whispered.
“So Marc didn’t murder you?” I asked.
“This is not some dream that I’m going to wake up from?”
“It’s not a dream,” she said, easing herself around in my arms so she could look into my face.
“Marc thought he had murdered me, and still does, but I got away.”
“But how…? Where have you been…?
Who else knows you’re still alive?” My head started to hurt as I tried to play catch-up.
“Okay, I’ll tell you everything…you might not like what you hear…but I had to do it, Jim…I had to do it,” she said, staring at me.
“Do what?” I asked.
“Pretend I’ve been dead all this time.”
“What are you saying? That the whole thing has been some elaborate con?” I shook my head disbelievingly.
Pen broke my gaze and said, “Yes…but, Jim, I had to do it.”
“So where’s An
nie? What part did Annie have to play in all of this?” The realization of what was happening and what had gone on was slowly seeping in and I was becoming angry – hurt.
“Annie – she didn’t play any part in this…
like everyone else, she thinks I’m dead,” Pen explained.
“But the notes? She wrote letters to me…
helping me…” I could see Pen slowly shaking her head at me.
“No, Jim, Annie never sent those letters…
I did…they were all from me.”
“All of them?” I asked in utter shock.
“All of them,” she nodded, lowering her eyes as if in shame.
Feeling as if I had been tricked, deceived by her, I eased my way from her, stood up, and began to put my clothes on and went back out into the forest.
“I thought you’d be pleased to see me,”
Pen said, taking her coat and placing it about her shoulders and following me.
“Pleased to see you?” I laughed with tears standing in my eyes. “Do you know what I’ve been through for you? Do you have any idea? ” I shouted.
Pen looked at me and shook her head.
“I was attacked...fucking shot at...God knows how many times! My Inspector thought I was fucking deranged…I had to sit and watch my best friend in a snuff-movie…put up with months of fucking anguish at the thought of you dying...only to find out I have been lied to…been deceived…but do you know what hurts most of all, Pen?” I barked at her.
She looked at me and shook her head numbly again.
“To be lied to by you…to be deceived by you. How could you be so fucking cruel? ” I spat.
It felt as if my whole being, my whole existence had been turned upside down. I wanted to feel relief, pleasure, sheer joy that she was still alive, but instead, I felt only anger and hatred for her.
“I’m sorry, Jim…I really am…but I had to. Marc was hurting me, he was stealing off me…he was destroying me.”
“Why didn’t you come to me, I would’ve helped you! ” I said.
“I couldn’t. Marc said that if he so much as got a whiff that I had involved you, he would have killed me. And besides, I wanted you to be proud of me…I wanted you to think that I had made a success of my life.”
“Pen, I would have been proud of you whatever…” I started.
“I looked at your life and all of your dreams had come true,” Pen cut in. “You had met a beautiful girl; you became a cop and were leading a full and exciting life. The Lycanthrope aren’t meant to achieve anything with their lives.
We are just a bunch of murderous criminals, or so the Vampyrus believe. I wanted to be different. I wanted to prove to you that I was different. The Ooze Bar proved I was making a success of my life – that I didn’t want to be a criminal like my father, uncle...”
I listened as Pen told me how Marc had strolled into The Ooze Bar one day looking for work. He had been charming, funny and delightful at first, and Pen had fallen in love with him. So Pen had taken him on, and at first she thought Marc had some good ideas of how they could improve the bar and he seemed like a really hard worker. Then Steve was brought in as chef, with the intention of making the bar more of a success.
“When I asked Marc what cooking experience his brother had,” Pen explained, “he told me that he had worked in lots of kitchens preparing food. What I didn’t know then, and didn’t find out until it was too late, was Steve had worked in plenty of kitchens but they had all been while serving time in prison in The Hollows.”
When I discovered this, I confronted Marc, and for my trouble, I got a punch in the face.
“And that’s when the violence started and the truth came out. I learnt that my father had given me away to Marc’s father in a card game years ago. To Marc that meant not only was my body his, but everything I owned, too. He didn’t love me. I was just a possession. I’m a wolf just like them, and at first I fought back, but I didn’t stand a chance against the two of them.”
“You should have come to me, Pen,” I told her again.
“Like I said, I couldn’t.”
“So what did you do?”
“One night I was lying in bed, most of the violence started in bed. Marc would come home from the café, angry and spiteful. Marc was incredibly jealous, his jealousy bordered on paranoia. He would accuse me of picking human men up and taking them back to the house for sex while he was working at the bar. He often accused me and you of being lovers. He had got it into his head we had been more than just friends when we were kids and he told me that I was never to see or speak to you again.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him to go fuck himself,” she half-smiled.
“What did he say to that?” I asked, although I already knew the answer.
“He attacked me. He threw me onto the bedroom floor and started to strangle me. All the time he was screaming at the top of his voice, ‘ You fucked him! You fucked him – didn’t ya?’
And when I tried to tell him we were just friends, he rammed paper into my mouth and down my throat until I passed out.”
The images of that video swam back into the front of my mind and my initial anger that I had felt for Pen turned to Marc.
“When I woke up,” Pen continued to explain, “Marc had gone, so I seized my chance and fled from the house and ran out into the night.
I didn’t know where to go, I didn’t know who to turn to, and so I went to Annie’s.”
Pen told me how she had cried in Annie’s arms as she told her everything. Annie had begged her friend to go to the police, but what she didn’t know was that Pen was a werewolf. I learnt that Pen stayed with Annie for a couple of nights until she thought it was safe to go home again.
It was then that Pen started to receive letters from the bank and the brewery, who demanded money for unpaid debts. Pen also found credit cards in her name hidden under the counter at the bar. Pen told me how she had telephoned the credit card companies and they assured her the cards did belong to her. Marc and his brother had been getting cards in her name and Pen was horrified and scared when she discovered they had run up debts of £15,000, £19,000, and £21,000
on different credit cards.
Pen explained her initial confusion as she considered why they needed so much money and what it had been spent on. It was only by chance one day, Pen had gone down into the basement to change a keg where she found Marc and Steve using heroin. Marc and Steve said that it helped them fight their curse.
“It was then I realised I had been unknowingly supporting their drug addiction,” Pen said. “I felt trapped and overwhelmed by them. I didn’t know how to get them out of my life. I knew that if I didn’t, they would drag me down with them, or worse, Marc would end up killing me.”
We walked back to the lake. The snow had begun to ease a little. I looked at Pen as she started to talk again.
“I knew I had to do something and it was you who gave me the idea.”
“How?” I asked.
“It came to me one day when we were talking on the phone. You were telling me all about your adventures at work and how you spy on wolves…you know…what’s the word?
Surveillance? You told me all about those dinky little cameras you used. I got myself one, and as you now know, I hid it in my ruby slippers in that display cabinet,” Pen said.
“Wasn’t that a bit risky? Marc could have found it,” I said.
“You were hiding them from experienced criminals and they never spotted them. Marc was a violent, small-time thug who was always drunk and stoned. He would’ve never spotted it. I put it there for insurance, really. I’d turn it on every night before I went to bed. I was scared that one night he might go too far and kill me. At least then, there would be some evidence of it. It wouldn’t matter that I was a wolf once I was dead, but it would have mattered to Marc if you and your cop friends had found the recording. Anyway, that night…the night I died…he came home in another drunken rage and attacked me aga
in.”
“I saw what happened on the DVD,” I said. “But you looked dead. It looked as if he had killed you.”
Pen pulled her coat tight about her naked frame. “The next thing I knew was when I woke up, in the dark, wrapped in a blanket with my throat feeling raw,” she said. “I knew I was in a vehicle and could tell it was travelling at speed. I guessed I was in the back of Steve’s truck as it was cold and I was outside. I didn’t know how long I had been unconscious for, but I guessed it had been for a while from snippets of conversation I could hear every now and then between Marc and his brother. ‘Why are we bringing her all the way up here? We’ve been going for hours,’ I heard Steve ask Marc.”
“Where were they taking you?” I asked Pen.
“I wasn’t sure, but I was scared of what they were planning to do with me,” she said.
“Didn’t you try and escape?”
“The vehicle stopped a couple of times, I guess at traffic signals, and I did consider uncoiling myself and jumping out the back of the vehicle, but they would have seen me and then finished me off properly,” Pen explained.
“So what did you do?”
“I waited. I didn’t know what else I could’ve done. Eventually, we stopped and I heard them climb out of the cab and come to the back of the vehicle. I could hear them talking clearly now.
‘How do you know this is the right place?’ Steve asked Marc. ‘Because no one ever comes out here other than wolves,’ Marc told him. I couldn’t believe what I had heard. I knew they had brought me here,” Pen said, looking over her shoulder at the forest.
“Here?” I asked, startled. “But why all the way out here?”
“Like Marc said, these forests and the lake is secret from the rest of the world. There was very little chance my body would be found here by anyone other than another wolf,” Pen explained. “They lifted me out of the back of the truck and between them, they carried me through the forest and dumped me back in those bushes.”
“What happened next?” I asked.
“It was freezing cold, but I stayed wrapped in that old blanket for as long as I could,”