by Tim O'Rourke
Werewolves of Shade
(Beautiful Immortals Series)
Part Three
BY
Tim O’Rourke
First Edition Published by Ravenwoodgreys
Copyright 2015 by Tim O’Rourke
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organisations is entirely coincidental.
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Story Editor
Lynda O’Rourke
Book cover designed by:
Tom O’Rourke
Copyedited by:
Carolyn M. Pinard
www.cjpinard.com
For Patrick
More books by Tim O’Rourke
Kiera Hudson Series One
Vampire Shift (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 1
Vampire Wake (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 2
Vampire Hunt (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 3
Vampire Breed (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 4
Wolf House (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 5
Vampire Hollows (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 6
Kiera Hudson Series Two
Dead Flesh (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 1
Dead Night (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 2
Dead Angels (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 3
Dead Statues (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 4
Dead Seth (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 5
Dead Wolf (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 6
Dead Water (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 7
Dead Push (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 8
Dead Lost (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 9
Dead End (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 10
Kiera Hudson Series Three
The Creeping Men (Kiera Hudson Series Three) Book 1
The Lethal Infected (Kiera Hudson Series Three) Book 2
The Adoring Artist (Kiera Hudson Series Three) Book 3
The Secret Identity (Kiera Hudson Series Three) Book 4
Werewolves of Shade
Werewolves of Shade (Part One)
Werewolves of Shade (Part Two)
Werewolves of Shade (Part Three)
Werewolves of Shade (Part Four)
Werewolves of Shade (Part Five)
Werewolves of Shade (Part Six)
Moon Trilogy
Moonlight (Moon Trilogy) Book 1
Moonbeam (Moon Trilogy) Book 2
Moonshine (Moon Trilogy) Book 3
The Jack Seth Novellas
Hollow Pit (Book One)
Seeking Cara (Book Two) Coming Soon!
Black Hill Farm (Books 1 & 2)
Black Hill Farm (Book 1)
Black Hill Farm: Andy’s Diary (Book 2)
Sydney Hart Novels
Witch (A Sydney Hart Novel) Book 1
Yellow (A Sydney Hart Novel) Book 2
The Doorways Saga
Doorways (Doorways Saga Book 1)
The League of Doorways (Doorways Saga Book 2)
The Queen of Doorways (Doorways Saga Book 3)
The Tessa Dark Trilogy
Stilts (Book 1)
Zip (Book 2)
The Mechanic
The Mechanic
The Dark Side of Nightfall
Book One
Unscathed
Written by Tim O’Rourke & C.J. Pinard
You can contact Tim O’Rourke at
www.kierahudson.com or by email at [email protected]
Werewolves of Shade
(Part Three)
This story is set in a where and when not too dissimilar to our own…
Chapter One
The light at the end of the alley, in both directions, looked like nothing more than a pinprick in an ocean of black. The walls felt as if they had narrowed even further – now brushing against the sleeves of my coat. I looked down and it was so dark I couldn’t even see my feet or the cobbled floor of the alley. I felt as if I were floating forward on a wave of darkness. Glancing up, I looked for the sky – the sky that the walls of the alleyway scraped against. It was nothing more than a silver strip of light way above me. With my mouth open, I fought to suck air down into my lungs. My chest felt as if some large creature had crept up while I slept and had smothered me.
That voice came again. “Mila!”
“Flint?” I gasped, unable to pinpoint the exact location of it in the darkness. “Are you there?”
But why would he be? Flint had stayed at home in Maze. He had wanted to stay and protect the people there. Flint was a night-watchman and had a job to do. He had made that perfectly clear to me. Perhaps my uncle Sidney had gone to Flint’s house after all and ordered him to come after me? But could my uncle really give orders to anyone – especially Flint? Flint only seemed to take orders from the other night-watchmen – one in particular. The one who had peered at me from beneath his hood. The one whose eyes had looked like nothing more than two black pits in the centre of his gaunt face.
“Mila!” the voice came again.
“Flint?” I rasped in the back of my throat, desperately trying to snatch in lungfuls of breath. My head felt light, and my legs rubbery.
The darkness continued to push at my back, driving me forward and deeper into the narrow alleyway – that pinprick of light never seeming to grow bigger ahead of me. Then from out of it, two arms suddenly threw themselves about me, as if pulling me from the darkness. The arms felt brittle – twigs wrapped in flesh. A musty smell like old clothes and mothballs wafted under my nose, making me recoil.
“I’ve got you,” a voice whispered in my ear.
“Huh?” I said, gawping up into a face that was so narrow it looked as if the chin had been chiselled into a point. In the centre of it sat two pale eyes. The pupils were clouded over with milky cataracts. Wrinkles lined the face, giving it the appearance of a plate that had been cracked into a thousand pieces and glued back together.
The face spoke again. “Be careful. You tripped. You could’ve broken a bone or two if you’d gone over hard.” The voice sounded raspy like a clot of snot was trapped in the throat. Those eyes swam before me. My head felt like a balloon that had had the air squeezed from it. I put a hand to my forehead as I felt those brittle arms slide from about my shoulders. My legs wobbled beneath me, threatening to topple me over. A claw-like hand fell back onto my shoulder to steady me. Screwing my eyes shut, then opening them again, I could see that I was no longer in the oppressive alleyway, but standing in the street that lay on the other side of it.
“The trick is to keep looking straight ahead – at the light,” the voice said.
I glanced in the direction of it and could see that it came from an elderly gentleman, who stood, one hand on my shoulder as if propping me up.
“The light?” I mumbled, glancing back into the darkness of the alleyway. I could just make out the street that lay at the end of it – the street where The Weeping Wolf stood – the street that led to the hill and the wood – the street that always led into the alleyway.
I looked back at the old man as if sensing I was now steady on my feet, he let his thi
n, liver-spotted hand fall way from my shoulder. He stood before me, dressed all in black, looking something close to an undertaker. His suit, although clean and smart, was shabby. The cuffs at the end of each sleeve were frayed as were the lapels and the hems of his trousers. The black and pointed shoes he wore, although polished like mirrors, were cracked like dry skin.
“I thought I heard a voice… my friend… Flint…” I said, looking at him as we stood in the rain. It bounced off the brim of the black bowler hat he was wearing.
“A voice, you say?” he said, rubbing the end of his pointed chin. “I only heard you cry out as you stumbled from the alley. Good job I was passing and was able to catch you – stop you from falling flat onto that pretty face of yours.”
“I tripped?” I frowned, not remembering tripping or even walking the length of the alleyway. “It’s so dark… I felt as if I was suffocating…”
“I know,” the old man croaked, nodding his head in agreement. “The darkness can play tricks on you, that’s why you should keep looking straight ahead – at the light.”
“Isn’t there any other way – no other route to this side of the village?” I asked, peeking over his shoulder. Some of the villagers had stopped again on the opposite side of the street and were eyeing me – those dumb looking expressions on their faces again. Their stares made me feel uncomfortable.
“There is no other way – just the alley – that’s the way,” he smiled at me, the lines around his thin lips like deep crevices.
“Why are they staring at me?” I spoke out loud, more to myself than to the old man.
“Pay them no mind,” he said with a wave of one bony hand. “They are just curious, that’s all.”
“Curious?”
“You’re a stranger here…” he started.
“That’s what Calix said,” I muttered, one eye on him, the other drawn toward the people that I could see over his shoulder.
“And he’s right,” the old man said, his voice raspy. “They’ll get used to you.” He stuck out one of his hands. I looked down at it. The fingers looked painfully thin and long, like they had been stretched. “Where are my manners?” he said. “Let me introduce myself. My name is Augustus Morten.”
I slowly took his hand, his ice-cold fingers encasing mine. “Mila Watson,” I said, forcing a smile and sliding my hand from his. I shoved it into my coat pocket seeking warmth. “What do you do here – what is your job?” I asked, remembering how Rea had told me that each villager had a specific role to play in Shade.
“My job,” he smiled again, milky-white eyes meeting mine. “I’m the gravedigger.”
“Gravedigger? Is there much call for such a person in Shade?” I asked, surprised by what he had told me. I glanced over at my spectators again. They were still standing stock still and watching me. I looked away and back at Morten.
“Fortunately not,” he said. “But people still die from time to time. And what about you?”
“I don’t plan on dying anytime soon,” I said, wondering what the chances of that happening was if I stayed in Shade. If I took Calix’s warnings seriously then my imminent death was looming.
“I meant – what job has Rea appointed you?” he asked.
“School teacher,” I said.
“Excellent,” he smiled, straightening his round shoulders as he stood tall.
“I should really be on my way,” I said, thinking of how Rea had told me that the children would be waiting for me. How long had I spent searching for another route to this side of the village? How long had I stood outside The Weeping Wolf listening to Rea and Calix having sex in one of the upper rooms of the pub? All of that seemed like it had taken place hours ago. I shot one quizzical look back over my shoulder and into the alleyway again.
“Then I shall walk with you,” I heard Morten say.
I turned to find him standing with his arm out, as if waiting for me to loop mine through his. I looked at it, then back at him.
“I don’t bite,” he smiled.
Chapter Two
Slowly, I slid my arm through his. I didn’t want to. It made me feel uncomfortable. I didn’t know him. He was a stranger to me, just like I was to him and everyone else in Shade. But I didn’t want to refuse either. I didn’t want to appear unfriendly. I had to try and fit in if I were to ever gain the trust of the villagers and stand any chance of finding out the truth about my parents and about this young woman – witch – I had grown up hearing so much about.
“See, you don’t have anything to fear,” Morten said, as we stepped away from the entrance to the alleyway and set off up the street. As we went, I couldn’t help but notice how he glanced across the street at those who stood staring at me, mouths open as if catching the rain. Then reaching up, Morten tipped the rim of his bowler hat at them and said, “Good morning.”
At once, the people of Shade looked away and carried on about their business, heading away in either direction along the street. I couldn’t help but wonder two things as Morten ambled along beside me, my arm threaded through his. Had he given them some kind of sign that it was okay – safe perhaps – to go about their business? And my second and more pressing thought was that the villagers hadn’t been staring at me just because I was new to the village of Shade. We passed shops and the butchers where the man still stood in the window. As we strolled on by, I shot a glance sideways and couldn’t help but notice that the tray in the window was now empty. All those raw pieces of meat had been sold.
Each person we passed, Morten would tip the brim of his hat, smile, and say, “Good morning to you.”
Many of them seemed to ignore his greeting or it went unheard as they were too busy throwing me a sidelong glance, then looking quickly away. And again, I couldn’t help but wonder if they were looking in awe at me or in fear. I knew their stares were more than that of mere idle curiosity. I was glad when we had reached the end of the street and Morten led me across the park. We headed in the opposite direction to the little house where I had set up residence. I looked in the direction of it, wondering if I would see that little girl peeking out at me from behind the tree in the front garden. I couldn’t see her. Morten hadn’t spoken as we’d made our way through the village and the silence had grown uncomfortable. It felt odd to be strolling through the rain, arm in arm with a man old enough to be my grandfather – a man I did not know.
So breaking the silence, I said, “Are there werewolves in Shade?”
I couldn’t help but feel the sudden jolt in Morten’s stride. “That’s a strange thing to ask.”
“Is it?” I said, my mind full of all those questions I needed answering. Morten looked old enough to have lived in Shade the whole of his life. If anyone was going to have answers to my questions it would surely be him. He would know what had happened in Shade when everyone was believed to have gone missing. “Rea said that it was her job to protect the village from werewolves.”
“And it is her job,” Morten said without looking at me. Rain dripped from the brim of his hat and onto his chin, which jutted out from beneath it. “But there hasn’t been wolves seen in Shade for many years – they’ve all gone now.”
“But Calix shot a wolf only last night,” I told him.
“Sorry, I meant to say werewolf,” he corrected himself. “There is a difference.”
I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t so sure that there weren’t any werewolves in Shade – and that I had seen one just last night. But I bit my tongue. I didn’t know him and I still feared that if I said I believed I had seen a werewolf at least twice since arriving in Shade, Morten and everyone else might become suspicious of my motives for being here. They might believe I had brought the wolves with me. But there was another part that was scared of keeping my silence about the werewolf I believed I had seen. What if I was right? Wouldn’t that put everyone living in the village in danger? But it hadn’t attacked or killed anyone yet – not that I was aware of. It hadn’t attacked me. So perhaps – however much I hated to admit
it – Calix had been right. The wolf I claimed to have seen in the alleyway had been the wolf he had shot on the hillside. Morten had said that the darkness in the alley could play tricks on the eyes. But what about the giant wolf I had seen at the end of the garden path last night? Had that been a figment of my imagination too? It had been dark. I had been tired. I woke slumped against the front door. Perhaps I had been so tried after my trek from Maze to Shade that I had simply collapsed from exhaustion and dreamt the whole thing up. But I’d heard the wolf howl. It had been so loud that it had sounded like thunder. Wouldn’t the sound of it have woken the villagers? Neither Rea nor Calix had mentioned it. Morten hadn’t either.
“Couldn’t the werewolves come back?” I asked, dancing as delicately as I could around the subject, not wanting to seem too forceful or pushy.
“They might,” he said, glancing at me from beneath his hat. Rain ran over the bumps and grooves that lined his ancient face. “What do you think, Mila Watson?”
“I don’t know anything about werewolves.” I shrugged, looking straight ahead through the rain.
“So you’ve never heard the stories?”
“What stories?” I asked, trying to sound casual like.
“The stories about the beautiful immortals? The werewolves and vampires?”
“Rumours and stuff, I guess. That’s all,” I said. “I was told as a child that they had all gone back to the secret places they had once come from.”
“And who told you this?” he asked, coming to a stop beneath a tree at the furthest reaches of the park.
“My parents.”
“I thought you told Rea that you had no family,” he smiled, peering up at me, his eyes as white as marbles.
“She told you that?” I asked, surprised.
He nodded. I slid my arm from his.