by Lee Monroe
‘I’d better fill you in,’ Polly said chummily. ‘Olivia came looking for her mother at our house, because Lydia Ellis is her aunt. But Ade and I weren’t happy about that. Not least because we got rid of Olivia’s mother a while ago. And we didn’t want any awkward questions. Not to mention some freeloading little hobo girl wheedling her way into our family.’ She glanced at Olivia, who was still crying quietly. ‘Anyway, we kind of botched up killing Olivia – ’ Polly paused to frown at Ade ‘ – and she kind of escaped, went to the police, and … well, the rest you know from the news. She’s still hanging around like a bad smell. And that has to stop. You understand?’
Olivia and I locked eyes. In hers I saw fear and pain combined. I felt overwhelmed by helplessness. In my pocket I gripped the matchbox – our only salvation.
But then something else happened. Something so gloriously simple occurred to me that it was all I could do not to laugh in relief.
‘You’re actually going to kill us?’ I said. ‘What good will that do?’
Polly sighed melodramatically. ‘We’re not going to do that – not yet.’ She gestured at Olivia. ‘Well, maybe her. But not you, Jane. We have something much more productive lined up for you.’
I bit my lip, waiting. Beside me Olivia shifted in her seat, her small thin hands gripping her knees. I sneaked out a hand and closed it over one of hers, trying to signal to her that it might be OK. It just might be OK.
A miracle could happen.
Ade started to drive off again, as Polly left me hanging.
‘Well?’ I prompted.
She laughed, a low, dark sound. ‘You’re going to take us to what we really want, Jane. You’re going to take us back.’
‘Oh,’ I said, understanding. All hope fizzled out. ‘I don’t think I can do that,’ I said lamely. ‘It’s not possible …’
‘Of course it is,’ she countered briskly. ‘We know how it works.’
‘Forget it,’ I said blankly. ‘Even if I could take you back to Nissilum, I wouldn’t do it. My link isn’t strong enough.’ I paused. ‘And why have you waited till now? You could have cornered Luca at any time.’
‘We like the slow approach and to play with people,’ she said lightly. ‘It’s much more fun. Though in this case possibly a bad idea.’ She turned to Ade. ‘We misjudged that rather.’ She sighed. ‘It would have been fairly straightforward, too. We would never have just killed him. That wouldn’t have got us anywhere. Instead we worked our “mental magic” on the two of you – on Luca particularly. But it turns out he’s a little brighter, a little more sensitive, than we thought.’
Ade was very quiet, but his profile seemed to be altering by the minute – the down on his face first, then, as I looked at his hands on the steering wheel, the coil of his fingers, like claws digging into the plastic.
‘I can’t do it,’ I said. ‘I won’t.’ I looked at Olivia. ‘You can do what you like with me but Olivia has done nothing – except turn up when you didn’t want her. She doesn’t deserve to die.’
‘Shut up!’ Polly whirled round and I gasped at the sight of her face, narrowed down to a tip at the chin; her eyes were dark – no longer blue, but a greeny-brown colour, and her long red hair seemed to have merged with her body. She stared at me, opening her jaw just enough for me to see the sharp teeth inside her mouth.
I tried very hard to conceal the extent of my shock – my terror. I kept to the mantra playing inside my head. Stay calm. Whatever you do, stay calm.
‘I have the necklace,’ I said quietly.
Polly’s eyes were looking more feral by the second. ‘What are you talking about?’
I was still holding Olivia’s hand and I squeezed it as I went on. ‘Olivia’s necklace. Remember? You tore it off her neck when you tried to bury her alive.’
‘So what?’ Polly said raspily.
‘Let me clarify. My mother has the necklace. And she also knows of my … suspicions.’
‘How did you get hold of it?’ Ade suddenly came to life, his voice now as gruff as his sister’s. His claw-hands, I noticed, were strained. His ears were now different too. Sharper. He still looked human. Just.
‘Luca found it. Weeks ago.’ I waited.
Polly shrugged. ‘So we just go back for your family,’ she said with unconvincing nonchalance.
‘Don’t you see?’ I half laughed. ‘If I don’t get home by midnight my mother will call the police.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Ade said, and to my horror I saw we were at the entrance to the training ground. He flicked on the indicator, unnecessarily, as there were no other cars around. ‘I called your mother earlier. I told her not to worry if you weren’t back tonight. That I was probably taking you back to Ashley’s for a sleepover.’
My heart fell. ‘She’ll never believe that.’ I didn’t add, ‘Because I’ve never been to a sleepover in my life’; I left it at that. But despair was descending. She might just believe that. Hadn’t I made a show of being more sociable from now on just before I left the house?
‘We’ll see, shall we?’ He smiled darkly and brought the car to a stop. The eerie quiet of the training ground seemed to mock me. I almost wanted to die now. Give up. Just allow them to do what they wanted. But I would never take them to Luca. I was certain about that. I shivered and my hand closed even more tightly over the matches in my pocket.
I couldn’t die. Not with all the rotting wood around this place. And some firestarters in my hand.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
‘What’s going on?’ Dalya appeared in the doorway of Luca’s bedroom, her face a picture of anxiety.
‘Nothing for you to worry about,’ Luca told her breathlessly as he gathered a few possessions, stuffing what he could in the pockets of his coat. It was one of his father’s. His leather jacket he had left with Jane. A tiny sliver of comfort came from thinking of her wearing it. He stopped, breathing out to calm himself down.
‘You’re going back,’ said Dalya, ‘to Jane.’
Luca stopped what he was doing and looked up at his sister. ‘I have to,’ he told her. ‘She isn’t safe.’
‘Neither are you.’ Dalya sighed. ‘Luca, you will be careful, won’t you? I mean, if it’s you they want …’
‘It’s all right,’ he said, putting both hands on her shoulders, looking into her anxious brown eyes. ‘I will be careful. But I have no choice. The thought of anything happening to Jane …’
‘I know,’ she said with an air of finality. ‘You have to go.’
Luca hugged her tight, hoping that this was not the last time he saw his sister.
‘What did Ulfred tell you?’ she asked, pulling away. ‘I thought there was nothing you could do.’ She looked up at him through large eyes. ‘Is there something after all?’
Luca bit his lip. He had sworn to Ulfred that what has passed between them earlier must never be repeated. Particularly not to Henora or Dalya. Again, he felt glad that Lowe was not around. Lowe had a way of sniffing out trouble. And in this case, he would be eager for retribution.
‘It will be all right,’ Luca said eventually in answer. ‘You need to believe that. Believe in me.’
She nodded, but protectively did up a button on his coat. ‘And you need to believe in yourself, Luca,’ she told him softly. She stepped away from him then, clasping her hands together. ‘If you need me, I will come at once.’
‘Thank you.’ Once again he embraced her and then watched her walk away before looking down at his jacket and briefly shutting his eyes.
He was scared. More than he’d ever been. This felt nothing like the danger posed by Nissilum’s renegades. This was a whole new level of danger. The Vulpecula had no interest in goodness, or forgiveness, or salvation.
They simply wanted revenge.
CHAPTER FIFTY
‘Out.’ Polly held the passenger door open and stared stonily at Olivia, who appeared to be frozen into her seat. Polly’s slender physique was quivering slightly and, glancing at her hand on the door, I
saw her long fingers curling and her nails sharp. I nudged Olivia.
‘Better to do as she says,’ I whispered, adding, ‘Don’t worry, it will be OK.’ I had no idea if that was true, but Olivia looked frightened out of her wits. Probably reliving the last time she had been here.
Olivia stepped shakily out of the car, but her expression had turned a little tougher. She lifted her chin at Polly.
‘How can you think you’ll get away with this?’ she asked steadily. ‘It won’t take the police very long to work it out.’
Polly smiled nastily. ‘The police? Do you really think we’re worried about the police?’ Her teeth were feral and pointed, I saw, and her eyes were practically narrowed to strips. She leaned forward, putting her face closer to Olivia’s. ‘We’ve already informed them of your drug habit. Living all this time on the streets, who could blame you for falling into addiction?’ She stepped back. ‘And you know what drugs do to people, Olivia?’ She waggled her finger against her head in the global sign of lunacy. ‘Send them a little paranoid.’
‘But you’ve already tried to kill me once. The police are on the lookout—’
‘Oh, didn’t I tell you? That was a natural disaster. You fell into that cave – easy to do when you’re high.’ Polly eye’s flickered over to me. ‘Ade has explained it all to that nice policeman. He thought it seemed the most likely explanation.’
‘No.’ Olivia shook her head. ‘He believed me …’
Polly sighed, raking her hand through her long red hair. ‘He did – and then he didn’t. My brother can be very persuasive and charming when he wants to be.’ Again, she glanced at me. ‘Jane seems to be the only girl so far who hasn’t fallen under his spell.’
I shuddered. The thought of Ade repulsed me now. But deep down, there had been a glimmer of attraction, if I was being totally honest. But it was that kind of involuntary attraction that isn’t real.
‘Olivia …’ I spoke at last. ‘Don’t listen to Polly, shut her out. Don’t engage – this is how they get to you.’
Olivia looked uncertain, while Polly merely looked amused. ‘A bit late for that now,’ she rasped.
Ade, who had been pacing the ground, restlessly marched over to the three of us. Olivia and I waited for something awful to happen as he put his hand on Polly’s shoulder.
‘I don’t want to waste any more time,’ he told her. ‘I’m already bored with this.’
I stared at him. ‘What about Ashley?’ I asked. ‘How are you going to explain my disappearance to her?’
Ade raised an eyebrow at me. ‘You don’t have to worry about that.’ Then he tilted his head upwards, looking up at the night sky, his dark-red curls smoothing against his scalp. Before our eyes, the shape of his face changed from human to something distinctly animal-like. His body stretched for a moment, with an almost visible snap, before his spine curled and his hands hit the ground. Moving his head slowly from side to side he finally turned it to face Olivia and me as we stood, watching, both mesmerized and horrified at once.
As my heart pounded, I put an arm out in a futile attempt to protect Olivia, whose shaking had upped to a whole new level.
‘It’s all right,’ I whispered, against mounting odds to the contrary. ‘It will be all right.’ I dragged my eyes away from the creature in front of us, with its eyes like granite, only to be met by an identical creature to my left.
Polly, too.
I had no time in which to think, I just focused my thoughts on one image, though it felt like every drop of blood within me was swirling, pounding. I thought of gentle green eyes, a mop of messy brown hair.
Luca! I made my brain chant, calling. It had worked before. Perhaps it would work again.
But there was no other sound now but the snarling of the fox-humans to the front and the side of us.
The Vulpecula. Their jaws dripping with saliva, their clawed paws digging in to the earth beneath them.
Ade growled a low, contemptuous noise, the kind a wild dog might make. I swallowed, keeping the image of Luca in my mind, and took a step back, my eyes flickering to Olivia, who was rooted, terrified, to the spot.
‘When I take your hand,’ I said as quietly as I could, ‘run with me. Run faster than you’ve ever done in your life.’
Only a bewildered blink gave me a signal that she understood. I turned back to Polly and Ade.
‘What are you going to do?’ I asked them, desperately trying to keep the wobble out of my voice. ‘Eat us?’
The growling increased in volume and I jerked as the two foxes – a good deal bigger than their earthly counterparts – started to move closer to us. Instinctively I reached out and grasped Olivia’s hand and hissed, ‘Run! Just run!’ And dragging her behind me, I began to sprint, across the damp grass, as fast as my legs could carry me.
While behind us the Vulpecula were in pursuit.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Luca came to, wedged between a couple of birch trees on the hill leading up from Jane’s house. He squeezed himself through them, pulling his jacket lapels closer together and brushing flakes of wood from his sleeves. Only the sound of a gentle night-owl hooting could be heard – that and the chiming pain inside his head.
He closed and then opened his eyes, trying to keep alert. The sense of danger, like an alarm, was almost blinding. He started to run down the hill, dodging the trees, snagging himself and barely feeling it. Glancing at Jane’s house, he knew she wasn’t there. She had made contact with him – he had felt it as clearly as though she were standing in front of him. Her frightened grey eyes had swum in front of his and then disappeared.
Luca kept running, beyond the house, feeling his body straining against his clothes. A different kind of pain hit him now. The pain of turning. Always more acute when it was done out of sight of a full moon. His neck snapped almost agonizingly as his speed picked up an altogether less human pace and he was bounding urgently in the direction of the town and beyond.
I’m coming, he told her, inside his mind. I won’t let anything happen to you.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
My breath was coming so thickly I thought my heart would explode. Just a little behind me, Olivia was moving with the kind of agility that comes from sheer adrenalin pushing you on. I glimpsed the fence, covered in foliage, with no discernable escape route.
The Vulpecula were so close behind us they were practically snapping at our heels. I scanned all that I could see ahead of us and, to my relief, saw a stretch of broken fence, mercifully free of ragged hedgerow. Grasping Olivia’s hand tighter I pulled her, with strength I never realized I had, in the right direction. As we ran through the gap I used my free hand to wrench a hefty piece of broken wood free, darting behind the hedgerow and virtually throwing Olivia into the ditch.
‘Stay there,’ I panted, nudging her deeper into the ditch with my foot, before turning to meet the enemy. It was just in time, as one of the Vulpecula – I couldn’t tell which – had reared up on its back legs, its vicious jaws open to reveal deadly teeth.
Shutting my eyes, I forced the thick piece of wood up in front of me, just as the fox’s head hit it.
I winced at the impact and the sound of bone against wood. The fox dropped limply to the ground. Astonished at what I had done, I lowered the heavy wood, only now registering my aching arms, and stared breathlessly down at the fox’s body. It was alive for sure, but stunned. It was only a matter of time before the animal regained its strength.
Lifting my head I saw the other one – at this distance, the smaller of the two, and clearly Polly – sniffing anxiously at her brother’s injured form. I swallowed, knowing I had very little time in which to exploit this diversion.
Dropping the wood, I moved back quickly, urgently feeling in my pocket and taking out the thankfully dry matchbox. Keeping one eye on Polly, still pawing Ade, I silently used my foot to draw the wood towards me on the ground. As a mountain girl, I knew how unlikely it was that one flame would set a thick damp piece of wood on fire. But s
etting fire to the plank was not my first thought.
I bent to check on Olivia, seeing only frightened, confused eyes. I put my finger to my lips, while nearby, Polly had sent up an excruciating screeching sound.
I took out two of the matches and looked up above me at the mass of tangled sticky branches and hedgeleaf. I stood shakily upright, striking the matches and tossing them into the hedge.
I saw the bright glow flare, catch a leaf alight, only then to fizzle out. I drew out a clutch more matches and struck them hurriedly, again tossing them into the mass of green and brown.
Screwing up my face tightly, I willed the hedge to respond this time. But the heavy rustling next to me drew my attention away. To my horror, I saw Ade getting up on to his feet. He appeared to be sniffing aggressively.
Ignoring the fact that I was shaking like my mother’s washing machine on full spin, I looked back. Relief flooded through me as I heard the crackle of wood catching fire and then saw the glow of the spreading flames.
It wasn’t much, but it was a start. I stepped back and then lowered myself, grabbing hold of Olivia’s hands and wrenching her forcefully out of the ditch, pushing her behind me.
The foxes had stopped moving, transfixed by the growing licks of fire. I could see something in their eyes that I had never seen before.
Fear.
Polly stood on her hind legs, quivering. In front of her, Ade tried but failed not to react. He backed into his sister, pushing her away from the flames.
‘Scared?’ I asked breathlessly, swallowing my own fear back. ‘How does that feel?’
Ade simply growled, a string of spit hanging from his jaw. Polly whimpered, her pointed auburn ears twitching.
‘You don’t like fire?’ I waved my hand at the hedge, now burning for all it was worth. ‘What’s the matter? Worried your souls will burn in hell?’
And then, above us, the skies rumbled and a mass of dark clouds swirled uneasily. It took a minute for me to realize what that meant.